Female surfers took the scraps, if they were invited at all. Surfing schedules are determined in the morning based on what the ocean waves are like, and it was no secret that the boys’ and men’s competitions would be given the best surf conditions, usually in the morning. And though it wasn’t an official rule or standard, there was clearly a preference for the men’s game. Modern day professional surfing in a previous iteration had a decentralized approach that left brand sponsors in charge of many of the competition logistics, which would vary widely from one event to another, said Greg Cruse, USA Surfing CEO. “I never made them, but then you see who actually made them and you feel like: ‘Oh, I guess, like, that’s what I should look like.’” And there were a lot of ‘hot lists’ or the ‘cutest surfer girl list,’” Moore said. “Everyone had this idea of what a surfer girl should look like. Moore is 28 now and has spoken openly about starving herself as a teenager, only to binge eat later, and once even trying to force herself to throw up.

“When it comes to controlling nudity, it’s about controlling female bodies,” said Walker, also a BYU-Hawaii history professor.Įven for Moore, the child prodigy who could beat the boys before growing up to be - at 18 years old - the youngest World Surf League champion in history, said she’s also struggled with her body image. Though locals largely defied the colonizers, female surfers saw their ranks shrink disproportionately. But Christian missionaries who arrived on the island tried to ban surfing in large part because of nudity - surfing naked was common at the sports’ inception. Hawaiians who invented the sport treated it as an egalitarian national pastime that all genders, ages and social classes enjoyed, according to Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, a Hawaii surfing historian. The mental, financial and logistical roadblocks for women in surfing date back centuries. Industry leaders from the professional World Surf League and the developmental USA Surfing say they’re committed to righting the wrongs that have long held female surfers back in the male-dominated sport. Though there’s much excitement and renewed enthusiasm for the women’s game, years of objectification, pay disparities and an opportunity gap have taken their toll. Now, Defay is headed to the Tokyo Olympics for surfing’s debut at the Summer Games, buoyed by an upset win against reigning world champion Carissa Moore at the high-intensity Surf Ranch competition last month. “And I just felt like I was never doing enough or I wasn’t fitting in, in the way that they wanted for their brand.” “They were just like ‘Oh, you don’t look this way, you know, for, like, pictures,” Defay said. (AP) - Johanne Defay of France was devastated when the mega sponsor Roxy dropped her right before she became a pro surfer in 2014, shattering her confidence and threatening her career altogether.