By Caitlin Creeper for Boundless Betty
Let me tell you one of the top-ten coolest things I have ever seen in my life.
There’s a woman who lives in the small surf town I live in. She surfs as if her life depends on it, every single time. When the swell picks up, so does she, and I’ve seen her drop into monster waves with the fearlessness of a woman who doesn’t fear death. She drops in on men and encourages me to too (‘it’s easier to say sorry than ask for permission!’) and, to this day I’ve never seen any of those men have the cojones to call her out on this. Because they know she’ll tear them apart with her teeth.
One day I had to go to her house for something from one of her family members. While I was waiting in the living room, she rushes in from surf, water dripping all over her floor. Fifteen minutes later, she stalks out, looking freaking resplendent in black heels, black skirt, hair blow-dried and made up to perfection. She’s clearly rushing to work, where she works as a lawyer in the city. She flicks me a quick smile, a goodbye, and is gone, her perfume and vitality lingering in the air. Forget catchy Instagram quotes and the overuse of the word ‘girlboss’ to me, that was the true epitome of a Woman Who Slays.
Why?
Around the time I started surfing and consuming more women’s action sport content, I started to notice a weird superiority complex toward women who wear makeup, who like to dress up, who embrace their femininity. Over and over in the womens action sport community I have heard women pride themselves on not being “one of those girls.”
A ‘high maintenance’ girl.
A girl who likes heels.
Someone who wears makeup.
A girl who likes dressing to amp up her femininity.
My question is, since when does the amount of powder you put on your face determine what “kind” of person you are?
Since when does it determine a woman’s athletic ability, her resilience, her courage and badassness?
It doesn’t.
To think yourself better because you go barefaced, or care little about what clothes you put on your back, or because you’re more of a tomboy than the other women, does not make you a better person or athlete than a woman who does. To think yourself ‘more authentic’ than other women or pride yourself on being ‘different’ from other women is something we call ‘internalized misogyny.’ Growing up we received so many subconscious messages that taught us to see women as competition, not as sisters. When men told us we were ‘not like other women,’ as though it was a compliment, and it taught as that separating ourselves from other women was a good thing. Every time we told someone ‘oh, I’m more of a guys girl, girls just start too much drama…’ (like, hello, maybe read a history textbook some time?)
Just as ballsy, just as fearless.
As women in actions sports, we have had to fight to earn our place and sense and belonging amongst male-dominated sports. We have had to prove we can be just as aggressive as men, just as powerful, just as ballsy, just as fearless. It has been a hard struggle and I honour and thank the women before us who have paved the way for us to feel a sense of belonging in our chosen action sport.
What now?
What, moving forward? Do we still have to participate in these sports and this lifestyle in an uber-masculine way, or, can we redefine these sports and these sports lifestyles as we wish for ourselves? With more layers, more textures, more emotions, greater complexities and intuition and passion. When a woman is in full balance, she is a beautiful interplay of her masculine AND feminine… and I think our chosen sports, the great true love of our lives, be it surfing, wake boarding, hiking, bouldering, snowboarding, whatever, should be reflective of that.
It should encapsulate the masculine warrior side that can slice down the face of a terrifying wave baring her teeth, and the reflective, flowing side that can sit in a lull between sets and feel the rippling connection with the ocean, the Mother womb. The masculine side that can pull through a gruelling hike while her thighs scream fire, and the feminine side that listens to her intuition when a little voice in her gut says ‘we shouldn’t take that trail today,’, later to hear about a vicious storm that swept over that exact area.
In effect…
It is no longer okay to try categorize your fellow female athletes and competitors on the basis of how much make-up they wear or how much of an interest in clothes and fashion they do or do not have, or how ‘girly’ or not they are. Women in make-up? GREAT. Bare-faced women? GREAT. Women? GREAT. Women are varied and powerful and magical. Let’s let the landscapes of our chosen sport fully reflect ALL women.
