A recent student, Marie M, told us on day two of class that as a woman, she was a little nervous that she would get to Grain only to find out that we would be "all cool and shit". She followed with this observation: "But I got here to find out that you're not cool at all!" We hope we know what she meant... Maybe our un-coolness is the reason we're still not sure whether it's OK to say "surfer-girl". The PC police are found everywhere that people still say "mailman", yet female surfers seem generally OK being called "girl surfers" or "surfer girls." Whatever - the important thing as far as we're concerned is that everyone of every size, shape, ability, color and sex that has a passion for surfing and surfboards can scratch their itch for waves or for building their own board.
A new friend, Courtney Hayes, has just started CetoSurf.com which is full of surf-related interviews and stories (there's a two-part Grain story up there now). But even more interesting is that the bulk of the site is given over to women surfers, acting as a free social networking site with event announcements, news, forum, classifieds and more that will be of special interest to women surfers.
We love that Courtney's heart is totally in the right place - she's just looking for cool ways to help women surfers of all ages to connect around their love of the ocean. The CetoSurf facebook page is loaded with conservation and beach preservation actions and news for both guys and gals, and has video and events geared for girls (can't pass up the alliteration). At Grain HQ, we've had a growing number of women surfers that have built boards themselves and have shown our male students a thing or two about how the feminine touch can often get a better result in class. In fact, two of our shapes were designed in part with female surfers in mind - the Pandan and the Steamer.