Olive Bowers wrote a letter to Tracks magazine, which labels itself as “the surfers’ bible'”, after finding a copy at her friend’s house.
The year 8 student at Princes Hill Secondary College in North Carlton said as she flicked through the pages, she only managed to find one woman. “She wasn’t surfing or even remotely near a beach. Since then I have seen some footage of Stephanie Gilmore surfing on your website, but that’s barely a start.”
In her letter to Luke Kennedy, the editor of Tracks, Bowers said she wanted to “bluntly address the way you represent women in your magazine”.
“I clicked on your web page titled ‘Girls’ hoping I might find some women surfers and what they were up to, but it entered into pages and pages of semi-naked, non-surfing girls,” she wrote. “These images create a culture in which boys, men and even girls reading your magazine will think that all girls are valued for is their appearance.
“I urge you to give much more coverage to the exciting women surfers out there, not just scantily clad women (who may be great on the waves, but we’ll never know).
“I would subscribe to your magazine if only I felt that women were valued as athletes instead of dolls. This change would only bring good.”
Kennedy said the magazine had covered female surfers extensively in the past but tended to focus on male surfers because men was its “primary audience”.
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