Understanding the Growth of Women’s Recreational Surfing (The Australian women’s surfing project)

Australia follows a global trend towards a rejection of ‘traditional’, organised team sports in favour of individual, recreational lifestyle sports such as surfing, skateboarding, and mountain biking (Gilchrist & Wheaton, 2011; Hajikowicz, et. al, 2013; Standing Committee on Recreation and Sport, 2010). In Australia, surfing is one of the most significant and growing lifestyle sports, with women a growing presence in surfbreaks. While culturally surfing remains male-dominated, recent growth of women’s participation in recreational professional surfing has meant changing politics and tensions, which are experienced in a range of cultural, geographical, generational, and representational ways (Olive, 2015, 2016; Olive, McCuaig & Phillips, 2015). This project will explore the impacts of the cultural impacts of women’s participation in surfing, including what are the most significant impacts of increased numbers of women in the surf and in surf media?

This research is funded by The School of Human Movement Studies Start Up Fund