“Uphill Battle”: Kelly Slater Voices Respect for Women’s Surfing World Champion Who Might Get a Bronze Statue

One of the biggest demotivators for a sportsperson can be coping with discrimination. Regrettably, Pauline Menczer, an Australian woman surfer, has faced this for a large part of her career. She has been unfiltered in her claims that the 80s and 90s were extremely difficult for her sporting journey.

Rife with gender disparity, the community offered neither sponsorships nor equal pay to women surfers. Moreover, additional judgment came her way for being dark-haired, gay, and ill with rheumatoid arthritis. But, today marks an extraordinary day for her, as Kelly Slater, the 11-time WSL Champion has hailed her battle.

Menczer’s experiences inspired her to challenge the status quo and be a torchbearer for future female surfers. However, Kelly Slater has appreciated her for another achievement.

Pauline Menczer’s ‘Surf Like a Woman’ gets lauded by Slater

Capturing her first-hand experiences in a memoir, Pauline Menczer has launched ‘Surf like a Woman,’ where she detailed her earliest roadblocks and how even the 1993 World Champion title fostered no change in scenario for her.  Reacting to this release, Kelly Slater has recently uploaded an Instagram story, with a picture of the book’s cover page, and has extended his heartfelt support.

He captioned it saying, “Pauline Menczer thanks for the book and congrats!” Following this, he praised her with, “Pauline has got a heart of gold” and further appreciated the professional milestones that make her the celebrated surfer she is today. He remarked that she “fought an uphill battle for the women’s surf tour, ultimately becoming the underdog world champion,” thereby acknowledging Menczer’s struggle.

Slater further honored her steely nerves to navigate through personal constraints. He added, “Battling health issues and lack of finances to travel the world, she never took no for an answer.” Indeed, as Slater rightly lauds, Menczer has been through a lot physically. Speaking to Surfer Magazine last month, she described her condition saying, “My arthritis was just so bad, I could barely walk” and that “it was actually scary; I was like a 95 year old, I was so fragile.”

After her piercing through such trying times, not just Slater but many have resonated with the Bondi native’s ideals. In fact, to commemorate her contribution, a  ‘Pauline In Bronze’ GoFundMe campaign was launched in 2022, aimed at raising $150,000 towards constructing her Bronze statue at Bondi Beach.

And now that Kelly Slater has voiced his public support for her heroics, Menczer’s release can win great mileage out of it. Moreover, Slater’s step marks another monumental leap toward his incessant support for the women’s surfing community, which has been a long-standing affair.

Kelly Slater’s take on women’s surfing

On many an occasion, Slater has expressed his progressive take. In 2016, he joined the Kering Foundation’s 5th White Ribbon for Women campaign alongside French footballer Antoine Griezmann and Chinese actor Yang Yang. It sought to normalize that violence against women is not solely a women-centric issue. And Slater supporting this spoke volumes about his attention towards a safer and more inclusive society in general.

However, exclusive to surfing, back in 2019, before kicking off the Surf Ranch Pro in Lemoore, the WSL declared that the league’s females shall be receiving equivalent pay to their male counterparts in all the WSL-regulated events. And Slater was among those luminaries who highlighted that it was a step in the right direction.

He said, “The women on the Tour deserve this change. I’m so proud that surfing is choosing to lead sports in equality and fairness. The female WSL athletes are equally committed to their craft as the male athletes and should be paid the same. Surfing has always been a pioneering sport, and this serves as an example of that,” via Surf Simply.

He further appreciated, “To watch what these women do … I mean, what they are able to do out there is every bit as difficult and as dangerous and as impressive as what any man on the tour does.” Therefore, he welcomed the call saying, “The decision by the WSL is a message to society — that equal prize money should be the standard,” via Women’s Agenda.

And now that Kelly Slater has esteemed Pauline Menczer’s with a welcome response, it truly feels that the G.O.A.T is setting a prime example for the surfing community to look up to.