I’ve been thinking a lot about International Women’s Day over the last week, mostly because I’m not participating in any events or actions or anything at all this year. I always know it is coming up (as I tell people who seem surprised it’s arrived, "it’s the same date every year") so I can only surmise that my apathy is intentional. By now, we know the critiques of IWD that emerge in Australia – that it is commercialised, corporatized, neoliberal, and focused on White women, middle class women, women with the most privilege – so my apathy isn't so hard to understand.  What has bee ..read more

This morning, I listened to the key, daily current affairs radio program on ABC National Radio, our national broadcaster. They usually close the show with a lighter story related to the arts, sport, or popular culture and this morning was no different as they interviewed Phil Jarratt about his new book, The Immortals of Australian Surfing. I’d not heard about this book, and it’s not a book I’d take interest in, but according to the promotion material:  The Immortals of Australian Surfing celebrates our greatest ever board-riders. It takes the Immortals concept used elsewhere in s ..read more

Although it happens less and less, there are still days when people will explain the continued absence of women in surf media as a reflection of a lack of interest in women’s surfing, or due to a lack of content created by women surfers themselves. These explanations are as frustrating as they are disappointing (and fury-inducing) because neither of these things are true. The high profile of women surfers like Stephanie Gilmore, Carissa Moore and Layne Beachley are simple evidence, but even more is the success of various media about women’s surfing. Films like Blue Crush (2002) and Girls ..read more

Although it happens less and less, there are still days when people will explain the continued absence of women in surf media as a reflection of a lack of interest in women’s surfing, or due to a lack of content created by women surfers themselves. These explanations are as frustrating as they are disappointing (and fury-inducing) because neither of these things are true. The high profile of women surfers like Stephanie Gilmore, Carissa Moore and Layne Beachley are simple evidence, but even more is the success of various media about women’s surfing. Films like Blue Crush (2002) and Girls ..read more

(Side note: Has it really been a whole year since I last posted?!) I’ve been trying to think about how to write about International Women’s Day (IWD) for 2022.  The theme, Changing Climates: Equality today for a sustainable tomorrow, gives lots of scope to this about how intersectional politics of sex/gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, colonisation, ageism, and ableism, link with ecological issues that I’m interested in, as well as the wars, natural disasters, and the pandemic that are dominating my news feed. As it happens, in my region we’ve been living in catastrophic weather events ..read more

(Side note: Has it really been a whole year since I last posted?!) I’ve been trying to think about how to write about International Women’s Day (IWD) for 2022.  The theme, Changing Climates: Equality today for a sustainable tomorrow, gives lots of scope to this about how intersectional politics of sex/gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, colonisation, ageism, and ableism, link with ecological issues that I’m interested in, as well as the wars, natural disasters, and the pandemic that are dominating my news feed. As it happens, in my region we’ve been living in catastrophic weather events ..read more

This week was International Women’s Day. Much to the seeming surprise of many people, it happens on 8th March, every year.  There is growing critique about International Women’s Day (IWD) day, what it represents, who it represents, and how we should recognise it. Key critiques are of the corporate back-slapping and self-congratulations that it enables, as businesses and organisations host morning teas at which they point out the ways they’ve been less sexist that year, while serving cupcakes to women and taking photos to share in their promotional material. I absolutely agree with these ..read more

From The Dry Salvages  by T.S. Eliot (published in 1941) The river is within us, the sea is all about us; The sea is the land's edge also, the granite Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses Its hints of earlier and other creation: The starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale's backbone; The pools where it offers to our curiosity The more delicate algae and the sea anemone. It tosses up our losses, the torn seine, The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar And the gear of foreign dead men. The sea has many voices, Many gods and many voices. ---------------- I just read this at ..read more

From The Dry Salvages  by T.S. Eliot (published in 1941) The river is within us, the sea is all about us; The sea is the land's edge also, the granite Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses Its hints of earlier and other creation: The starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale's backbone; The pools where it offers to our curiosity The more delicate algae and the sea anemone. It tosses up our losses, the torn seine, The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar And the gear of foreign dead men. The sea has many voices, Many gods and many voices. ---------------- I just read this at ..read more

Surfing is one of the great joys of my life.* Being outside, at the beach, riding waves, spending time alone or with friends, encountering all kinds of animals, being away from my computer and phone - it's a feeling of freedom and joy that I find in precious few other activities. The very thought of being in the water and riding waves makes me feel good. But while the joy of surfing is the biggest part of it, darkness, discrimination and exclusion are a large part of going surfing too. These cultural aspects - human wrought - are by far the worst of surfing; worse than the fear of sharks, of ..read more