Was meeting Caity after school at St Clair and happened upon Daisy Thomas (above) going out at St Clair after a morning surfing the Island with the crew.
Now if you were watching Campbell Live on Tuesday Night, she was interviewed for an item on:
Sexism in the sporting world seems to be rife Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:27p.m. "Daisy Thomas and Mishca Davis are two of the country’s top women surfers, Thomas is ranked number one on the national circuit and Davis is in fourth position."
Check out the rest of the article and link to a video of the news item here at the TV3 website.Certainly a controversial subject, how do you feel about it?
EDIT: just adding in an excerpt from a book about women & sexism in surfing next to the hayley Pic above, click to emlarge and read.
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4 comments:
A few questions to be contemplated ;
Billabong put on both events which event got the bigger crowd?
aren't sponsored surfers models anyway?
they are after all a walking/surfing advertisement what else is the sponsor paying for?
has professional sponsorship of sportspeople improved any sport ?
Allan Byrne has had way more success on the pro scene than maz with no real sponsorship- not to mention the all blacks have been statistically chronic losers since becoming pro!
not trying to twist your undies just provoke thought !
Are Billabong marketing dumb?
$1750 in prize money for the weekend plus the cost of staging both events for what a minuscule amount of 'brand identification'(a debatable marketing concept).
When they could have cut their prices (people are cheap)and done some real market research into what people want (people like what others like)
How many people knew before the tv slot that von z was a billi label? and would that have made/stopped them from buying either label or would the fabric/cut/price decide what was brought?
fortunately one far off day surf label marketing will catch up with the real world.
meanwhile it was great to see the tv reinforce billi's view that bikini contests utterly whip surfing contests when it comes to excitement and pulling crowds.
just human nature I guess, a bikini contest will pull more crowds in to a surf comp.
Just throwing a thought out there, but is a big issue about the sponsors picking their sponsored reps not only on sporting ability but on looks and 'bikini ability'? For guys, surfing ability is paramount, and it doesn't matter what they look like, Mark Richards is no Brad Pitt, but he's got the style and skill.
Unfortunately surfing multi-national corporates' actions aren't motivated by what is best for surfing. Just as the big multi-national corporate record companies aren't about music. The only thing that motivates them is money: what's right and wrong what's good and bad, what's proper and what's improper sadly isn't a factor. Until it affects the money.
The best way to influence them to change is actions which can undermine earnings. "Outing" companies that are associated with unacceptable practices may be the best way. It seems to have an impact and bring about a desire to change (not that they learn right from wrong, just that it threatens to impact on profit so boards and shareholders get edgy and incentives for change occur).
The only thing is - who will "out" surfing/ surf clothing companies? The surfing media won't do it because they run on their advertising patronage. Likewise Surfing NZ and clubs.
What would be handy is a rating system that ranks all the big companies (and their associated subsidiaries) on some ethical scale (eg: not just meaningful support for the sport they piggy-back on, but also environmental and labour market practices). That way those of us that care could elect to support the brands that have the highest "surfing friendly" ratings.
So thanks to Daisy and Mischa for the courage to "out" this particular issue. Who's gonna go the next step and produce a rating system for companies?
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