Earlier this week, a group of women surfers banded together to prove a point on sexism to a Gold Coast surfing competition who refused to create a women’s open division. The end result saw the women get well-deserved media attention and a separate division with equal prize money.
It all started when surfer Lucy Small was looking into the Kirra Longboard Klassic- a surfing competition held on the Gold Coast at the end of July- and noticed that there wasn’t a separate women’s division. There was only the Clearwater Pro Division– an open event– that had $5,500 prize money.
Small said organisers claimed this to be fair because “anyone can enter”, but in a video posted to her Instagram, she decided to explain why this was an issue.
“When you have a mixed division like that, the chances of a man winning the money is a lot higher, so it’s not really fair,” said Small.
To try to resolve the issue, Small reached out to event organisers to see if they could have a women’s open event and split the prize money, which she noted would still be $2,750– a good amount of money to be won, but organisers refused.
That didn’t stop Small, however, as she and a group of other women surfers all decided to enter the division and fill up the 16 participant slots– making their own “women’s division”.
And to cover the $250 entry fee, women’s surf brand Soul Gypsy chose to support them all with some money to help cover the costs.
The group of women managed to fill 15 of the 16 slots before a man actually entered the competition as well. Luckily, once the women added the man into their group chat and explained what they were doing, he said he’d withdraw in support.
“We’ve done it,” Small said at the time in another video posted to her Instagram account. “What they originally tried to have as a division for prize money for men is now the Kirra Longboard Klassic Clearwater Pro women’s division.”
But despite the women entering into the open division as “anyone can enter”, it seems event organisers didn’t like the idea of not having men at the competition as well.
Roughly five days later, Small posted another update video to her account, sharing that organisers agreed to have a dedicated women’s division with equal prize money.
“I just had no idea that it would be controversial,” Small said. “It’s like, anyone can enter, so women all entered but then it was really controversial and it just went all over the news. Which is just so nuts that women entering a pro, open division would be controversial because those divisions are full of men all the time.”
Small went on to explain that a brand had heard about the controversy in the news surrounding the women filling up the open division and “agreed to support a women’s division.”
“So we’re actually getting a dedicated women’s pro division with equal prize money now, which is a pretty amazing outcome.”