Making Waves Issue #40

The unsung ladies of the surf world

By Jeanne Storck
Published: June 1st, 2009 | 3:03pm

When Tiffany Campbell’s brother taught her to surf as a teen back in the late ’80s, he begged her to keep a low profile: He didn’t want to be seen in the waves with a girl. Campbell learned to surf and her brother endured the catcalls, but fortunately for everyone, times have changed.

In the last two decades, women surfers have arrived. In the ’90s, surf-duds designer Quiksilver added a women’s line, Roxy. In 2002, the Hollywood film Blue Crush, starring Kate Bosworth as a competitive surfer, made it cool for girls to grab a board. Nowadays young pros such as Stephanie Gilmore, Sally Fitzgibbons, Coco Ho, Silvana Lima, and Sofia Mulanovich rival the guys.

Now Campbell, who co-founded production company Villa Villa Cola with Andria Lessler in the mid-’90s, is gearing up for the release of Dear & Yonder, a new film that celebrates surfing’s newfound girl power. “Women are defining for themselves who they are as surfers,” Campbell says. “They’re out there reading swell charts, caretaking the ocean, researching and buying equipment, and creating a culture that doesn’t exclude men, but accepts that our experience can be different.”

Some women choose to surf “dear” – close to home, weaving the ocean into their everyday lives, while others surf “yonder” – jetting off for adventure and discovery in far-flung spots like Indonesia and Mexico. But what the women of surfing seem to have in common is a collective dedication to contributing to the community.

But it’s not just in the water and on the big screen that women are making waves. Known for her graceful moves, Aussie Belinda Baggs surfs competitively for Patagonia, but back on shore, she designs chic boardshorts from vintage fabrics.

Bay Area-based surfer Ashley Lloyd carries her love for surfing to dry land, too. “I always thought surfboard shapers were magicians,” she says, “but there aren’t a lot of women shapers out there.” Then a friend convinced her to give it a try, and now she pours the same laser-like focus she channels when riding the waves into crafting her own line of eco-friendly boards.

While many of these women are working independently, their growing contributions are gradually helping to form a stronger and more unified female voice within the surfing community. Ashley Davis is a mom, a wife, and a surfer, in no particular order, and the fact that she’s a woman is beside the point. “I don’t think the ocean knows what sex you are,” Davis says. “It kicks your ass just the same if you’re in a bikini.”