Pittwater Life October 2018 Issue

Surfing Life
Surfing Life
Increasing dark side to
surfing? Say it isn’t so...
If you’re aggressive towards women in the water, get out – there’s no place for you
You may have read of
this: an incident in
late August at Lennox
Head, the fabled NSW North
Coast surf spot. The incident
involved Mark Thomson, a
56-year-old long-term local
surfer, and 48-year-old
Jodie Cooper, a well-known
Australian ex-pro and regular
nominee for the Australian
Surfing Hall of Fame.
It is currently before the
courts, where police will
allege that after a collision
in the surf, Mark Thomson
assaulted Jodie Cooper by
holding her head underwater
three times in succession,
to the point where Cooper
was allegedly forced to feign
unconsciousness in order
to escape. The incident was
allegedly caught on video by
at least one witness.
As I mentioned, it’s before
the courts, and thus beyond
our judgment for the present.
But reports of the incident
did trigger some thought
about a possible dark side
of one of surfing’s greatest
modern features: the rise in
women’s surfing numbers, at
all levels of the sport, from
the pro ranks to daily go-outs
at beaches across our coasts.
What are these women
seeing and feeling of the
primitive masculine behaviour
that once ruled most
Australian surf zones – and
still does, in some cases? Are
they being targeted by older
men brought up in such surf
zones, in a kind of disturbing
surf version of Australia’s
plague of domestic violence?
I’ve begun some research
on these questions, and the
answers to date are not super
encouraging – at least if
you’re one of those innocent
souls who believe surfing is
essentially good for people.
Almost every woman
I’d talked with prior to
publication told me some
version of a minor horror
story, in which they’ve had to
face a furious man trying to
deny them surfing space in a
very gender-focused manner.
Example one: woman
paddles out at a popular
Sydney beach. Just one
other surfer is in the water,
an early-middle-aged man.
After a brief period, the man
begins snarling: “F**king
women don’t belong in the
surf! F**k ’em! F**k ’em!”
The man begins paddling
around, growing more and
more agitated, continuing to
rant, but never making eye
contact with the woman, who
by now is truly frightened.
with Nick Carroll
CONCERN: Women shouldn’t have to be fearful about surfing alone.
Then another man paddles
out. Seeing and hearing what
is going on, he says to the
agitated man, “You’re not
laying a finger on her, mate.”
The agitated man then begins
trying to punch the interloper.
The woman paddles quickly
to the beach, deeply rattled.
Example two: woman
paddles out at a spot on the
north coast where she’d been
surfing regularly for years.
Middle-aged man “drops in”
on her, yells at her and keeps
surfing. She confronts him,
whereupon he turns ultraaggressive:
“I know where
you live,” he tells her, “I know
what kind of car you drive.”
She paddles in immediately,
terrified – this being a woman
who is not easily terrified
(although she has narrowly
escaped being raped at a
nearby beach). “That idea of
the ultimate stoke being to go
surfing alone?” she says. “For
women, that’s a really scary
idea.”
Incidents of direct violence
are rarer, perhaps because
publicly hitting or attacking a
woman still carries a serious
42 OCTOBER 2018
The Local Voice Since 1991