Andy Irons – What happened?

Can pretty girls surf?

Surfing is a male dominated sport. A statement like that is not easily contested, especially when most line-ups around the world have a pretty uneven ratio of board shorts to bikinis. Lets face it, even the pages of Surfer display this sort male centered mindset, as article after article discusses the trials and tribulations of Jordy Smith or Joel Parkinson, while relegating the fairer sex to showing off their derrières in Reef ads.

Keep in the mind though, that there is no doubt that women can surf. There are magazines, clothing companies, gear, and even a portion of the ASP tour relegated solely for women. Hell, even Gidget got her own movie. Nevertheless, when it comes down to it, men tend to have more say in the surfing community than women do.

That is simply because most of the big name surfers throughout all of surfing history have been men, and not women. Whether it was Laird Hamilton at Teahupoo in 2000, or Duke Kahanamoku at the turn of the century, men have been at the focal point of this sport. This concept inherently implies that men have committed more to surfing then women have, and thus also inferring that men have more surfing talent than women do, partially explaining the attitude of male surfers around the world. With that being said, can women come to influence surfing as much as men do?

That answer lies with a girl named Maya Gabeira. A native of Ipanema, Brazil, Maya began surfing when she was fourteen. She is now twenty-three, and is credited with riding the biggest wave ever surfed by a woman (a fifty-foot bomb at Dungeons South Africa). She has won the Billabong XXL award four years in a row, surfed at many of the major big wave spots around the world, and to top it off, she is incredibly beautiful. So there you have it, pretty girls can not only surf, they can surf better then most men can. It may be a stretch, but it is entirely possible that a woman like Maya (or another talented female surfer like Layne Beachley) could make the next big splash in the surfing world. That surfing talent is hidden somewhere in that extra X chromosome, it’s just up to them to uncover it and show off a bit.