International Women's Day 2026 #givetogain
A perspective piece by a woman; mother, surfer, business owner. The last time I wrote something for IWD was for the Finisterre Blog Thread - Women in Surfing (reposted here). Someone asked me the other day (in a seperate context, but not seperate because its all connected), if 'it' was getting better. It got me to pondering... is 'it' getting better?
#givetogain Most of the time I find these slogans strange. Missing one side of the coin (the other being gain to give), and some kind of weird twist on reciprocity.
Reciprocity is one of five values commonly found in indigenous cultures; Respect, Responsibility, Reverence, Reciprocity, Relationality. In our current systems, both presence and indicators of these values are achingly missing. Somewhere it isn't missing is in Bhutan.
I few years ago I did a Mastery of Business and Empathy with Small Giants Academy. We studied Bhutans' Gross National Happiness (GNH). GNH is a holistic, qualitative framework focusing on sustainable development, psychological well-being, cultural preservation, and environmental conservation, designed to measure citizen welfare beyond just monetary wealth. As opposed to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which measures a nation's economic output and growth through the total value of goods and services produced, acting as a standard, material-focused, quarterly indicator of economic health.
If I was to apply a GNHesque lens to the health and wellbeing of 'women' within the field of surfing (because this here blog is one of a Surf Shop, one I own alongside my husband), what might this look like? [I could have said "is it getting better" but Spoiler Alert thats not going to happen in one blog post.]
After a 5 minute call to my husband, we came up with some semblance of indicators within the context of our shop, and a very brief glance at where we sit.
Ownership and Governance
50% male 50% female
Surf Shop Environment
Toilet - Yes
Sanitary products - Yes
Breastfeeding Safe Zone - Yes
Notice Board - featuring local women run events and offerings - Yes
Menstrual Leave - Not yet. Would support Governmental Policy
Local Surf Culture
Local Boardriders Club. Yes. Board member and club days.
Positive line ups. Yes.
Body image. Yes. No posters of models in shop (male or female).
Story Telling. Yes. Though Adam does all the story telling in shop, I have control of the keyboard. Mwahaha.
Women's Surf Culture. Yes. Women's Surf Trips with women guides, cooks, and photographers.
Representation
Products by Women. Yes. We feature woman owned and operated businesses. BUT these probably only account for 10% of our stockists.
Products for Women. Yes. But also this is a bit more grey area as; a lot of products are unisex. There are women designed products for women which are marketed by big companies, which could also be used by males ie. fins.
This wee exercise has been surprisingly interesting. Overall we're doing alright, but I now have a self nominated side quest to improve the indicators and get definitive answers. This will become the baseline, and next year we can come back and see if 'it' is any better than now.
Some ah-ha moments over this short exercise.
Most Glaringly Obvious - Get Lou Aitkens boards instore after talking about it forever.
Most Surprising - we have three women's signature fins at Drop In - Carissa Moore, Kelia Moniz, and Jaleesa Vincent.
Most Curious - What women based (by or for) product do you love? What would you like to see supported and available? So curious - let us know!
Well you made it this far, so below is a cool edit on pink fins, and I'm going to go dream about getting a Driver 3.0 with FCS fins just so I can get Carissa Moore fins. So I can surf just like her of course.
So there is my perspective from my corner of the lineup, but if it helps you think about what you can do, in your corner of the world, to make it better for women, then my job is done. And if you one day purchase something you need from our small owner operated surf shop trying to make it better, so we can stay around and keep trying, that would be cool too.
Image: The main image used for this journal post was taken last year by Julia in Ahipara - the place we moved to and now reside in that was mentioned in the 2018 article. It is very much similar to the photo used in the IWD 2018 article. That image was taken at Indicators, Raglan - where we moved from. They look very similar, is one better than the other?