“A Bittersweet Victory”: 2 Years After Her Revolutionary Stance on Equal Pay, Surfing Activist Makes a Saddening Revelation

29-year-old Australian surfer Lucy Small sent shockwaves in the industry with her braveheart speech at the 2021 Maljam Pro event. The winner of the longboard event was not delivering any ordinary acceptance speech. Instead, she took a revolutionary stand for the low pay range set for female surfers across the world. On the second anniversary of her iconic speech, the surfer-turned-activist expressed what went through her mind before the brave act.

On April 22, Lucy Small appeared in an interview with ABC News talking about the disparity she felt upon receiving the prize money, despite being a winner in the 2021 event. She also highlighted the stark difference in the pay that male and female surfers receive, even though they equally put the same amount of effort into a championship.

Lucy Small on the unequal pay for the female participants in surfing events

In 2021, Lucy Small, one of Australia’s best longboard surfers, won the surfing event in Sydney. On receiving the prize money, the female surfer could not help but loudly express her grievance with the amount. She told in her speech, “Thank you so much to the sponsors for the money they’ve put into the event, but I would say it’s a bittersweet victory knowing that our surfing is worth less than half of the men’s prize money.”

Furthermore, she stated that both male and female surfers bear the same flight and accommodation expenses. Still, the prize money of female surfers was half that of male surfers. Saying this she added, “So maybe we could think about that for next time.”

Moreover, in her recent interview with ABC News, Lucy revealed that she was furious to see women’s prize being $1500, whereas, the amount for men was $4000. She expressed in the interview, “I was pretty shocked about that,” she added, “And I called them out for it.” The sheer disparity turned her into an activist for equal pay in sports. Her courageous speech gave birth to campaigns such as Equal Pay for Equal Play NSW.

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Besides the campaign, Small recently visited Ghana to make a documentary on underprivileged female surfers and the conditions under which they try to practice surfing. The documentary is currently running in several film festivals across the world. Presently, Small’s main motive is to create equal opportunities for female surfers for skill improvement and to receive better opportunities.

Besides Lucy Small, eight-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore also highlighted the disparity between male and female surfers in an interview last year.

Stephanie Gilmore talks about the early days of her surfing

During an interview in 2022, 35-year-old Stephanie Gilmore explained that during the first eight years of her surfing tour, she received $12,000 whereas the male surfers received $40,000 as surfing pay. The disparity was shocking for her but she could not raise her voice because she wanted to focus solely on her surfing skills. Gilmore revealed that the media mostly talked about her looks than her surfing prowess. Everything was highly intimidating for her.

Eventually, Gilmore’s motivation to break stereotypes came from Tennis legend Serena Williams. She was inspired by how fiercely Williams dominated the sport irrespective of her looks. Her attitude got into Gilmore’s skin. The change in her surfing slowly became visible when she won her first world title in 2007. In fact, last year, she won the WSL title for the eighth time defeating five-time world champion Carissa Moore in the final encounter.

As Stephanie Gilmore began climbing the ladder of success in 2007, she realized a sense of responsibility to improve the surfing pay for women like her. Hence, she openly began talking about it in several interviews later on.

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The pay parity between women and men has a lot to improve. However, with the efforts of surfers like Lucy Small and Stephanie Gilmore, the change is slowly expected to set in the industry.