Historically, women make less than men when doing the same work. This has been true across the board in a number of industries. It is a type of workplace discrimination, and luckily, California has taken steps to ensure women make the same amount of money, including when it comes to less traditional jobs.
California recently passed a law that would require female surfers to make the same amount of money in competitions as their male counterparts. From now on when surfing competitions take place on the California shoreline, men and women will make the same for coming in 1st place. This has been a problem in the surfing world for a while now and continues to occur in other parts of the world.
As an example, take Bianca Valenti who is originally from San Francisco. She took part in a surfing competition in the summer of 2018 and came in first. Her prize was $1,750. However, on the men’s side, 1st place resulted in a grand prize of $7,000.
This has been a prominent issue in the sports world for years now. Female athletes who compete in soccer, tennis, cycling and more have sought to earn the same amount as men. Surfing has seen some success with many local governments only providing the public space to host these events if the organization agrees to pay female and male winners the same amounts.
This success was only possible due to the hard work of a lot of women. Sabrina Brenna is a board member for the San Mateo County Harbor District. She also serves on the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing. With her position, she is able to have some leverage when surfing organizations come to seek permits for their events. It seems as though surfing leagues have begun to do the right thing, and hopefully, many other organizations can soon follow suit.