The Flyer: The Wiccan Witch Of The Crest
It’s been a slow news week so let’s check a story from the file marked ‘Pioneers Get the Arrows, Settlers Get the Land.’
It’s an old story but its contours are familiar.
Way back in 1986, when the Bob Hawke Surf Team was in full swing, a woman by the name of Cougar Wicce-Otter applied for an arts grant from the government. Cougar was a Wiccan witch, if you can believe it, and she also shaped Wild Women Surfboards up near Angourie.
Denied the full $15K, Cougar received $11,000 with novel plans to create women’s wetsuits - “put them in shops and people will buy them” - hire coaches to advance women surfers, and further her line of Wild Women Surfboards.
Somewhere along the way the media caught wind of Cougar’s largesse, portraying it as a clear sign of Labor’s profligate ways. Thus began a hornet’s nest of righteous fury.
On behalf of the Liberals Waste Watch Committee, opposition leader John Howard awarded Wild Women the ‘Banana Award' - a reference to our supposed slide to a Banana Republic.
Newspaper editors wagged their fingers in judgement, TV host Mike Willessee piled on, as did radio shock jock John Laws who didn’t want government money spent on fringe groups such as “women and gays.”
Laws accused the government of ignoring worthy causes while "mollycodling the parasites and fringe dwellers of society."
Ask old surfers about the story and they recall Cougar’s name - no surprise - and that she was going to shape boards with breast cut-outs in them. They also recall the surf media made much fun of this.
Researching it decades later, I can’t find any reference to the ergonomic boards - nor do the pictures show any evidence of them. The boards do, however, look like a mix of modern day beginner boards - unavailable in 1986 - and blunt-nosed paipos for prone riding.
ASL interview, November 1986 by Martin Tullemans
Meanwhile, two interviews in the surf media, one in Australia’s Surfing Life and one in Tracks, both gave Cougar a good hearing. “Cougar was keen to point out that she’s not out to create some battle with males in surfing,” wrote Tracks’ editor John Ellis.
“We don’t want to compete with the guys,” Cougar said, “we don’t want to branch off. Our aim is to improve women’s place within surfing.”
Even the readers were non-plussed. The letters to the editor page - which could be both hornet’s nest and a good barometer of sentiment - went silent on them in the issues following.
Yet the debate raged in the general media for many months more. A thorn in the side for the Hawke government who were forced to launch a review into grants. It’s perhaps a surprise to modern ears that the amount being argued over equates to $31,000 in 2024 dollars - roughly three servings of smashed avo on toast.
Not much was heard from Cougar Wicce-Otter after the imbroglio, though the next year she gave an interview that included a prophetic last line.
“We sponsor women in contests and are always looking for more women who are interested in competing. Eventually, we hope that our lobbying and media exposure will secure equal prize money."
-Stu
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Comments
Grants - $31000 in 2024 dollars. Would love to know how much more they pissed away on the review.
wild women surfboards » Sat Apr 07, 2007 6:19 pm
Nick Carroll wrote:
Back in the 1980s, a woman named Cougar Wicc-Otter surfaced as a board designer.
Cougar was a wiccan feminist, with little or no surfing experience, who had the theory that women couldn't surf very well because they were being forced to use male-designed equipment. So she launched a women's only surfboard label up at Angas. Cougar thought women all had a different centre of gravity to all men, and thus needed womanised boards.
I think she may have become frustrated by the homocentric attitudes of the surfing community, and given up :wink:
On a more practical note, I wonder if maybe women are just too smart to be wasting time obsessing over rocker curves when they've got a bunch of delusional 40-plus-year-old male servants to do it for 'em. :lol:
Well whaaddya know, 20 years later and you remember me!
I was not really all that Wiccan, altho there is a bit of witch in all women so watch out.
I cant believe you guys have not progressed in social attitudes.
Well lets set the record straight.
Women DO have a lower centre of gravity, narrower shoulders than men and broader hips.
It's not rocket science, it's just the way it is.
I grew up in the surf and rode boards for 20 years. My Dad, Mum and brother all surfed and I just followed suit. I was never into the competition scene. I just loved the water and the waves. I never professed to be a brillianr surfer however the designs I made taking into account the different ergonomics of womens bodies really did work.
I didnt go broke, I just got tired of all the trivialization and moronic comments and moved to other stuff.
I live in Victoria at the moment but am wanting to move back to Gold Coast way, so reckon I might just start up the Wild Women Surfboards again. I have a 25 year old daughter and when she wanted a girly board there was zilch to choose from.
I got 10k from the Office of the Status of Women and after my grant women were seen a lot more on TV than before.
It is a shame you lot have to shred anyone who veers from the safe same old thing.
How do you expect innovation and advances to come about if a pile of people dont do 'out there' research and experiments?
If you want to make an impact and want to go where men fear to tread, be brave and fly in the face of the status quo.
Now who was that going on about breast dents in boards.....no 'boobies'..you called them....20 years on and you still call them 'boobies'!!
well it is a fact, some women have large breasts and yep i did make a couple of boards with scooped decks...not two dents...to accomodate. I always wondered why men's equipment didnt get a hiding on the deck but I guess all you blokes who jeer at women's breasts just have little dicks.
Post by Nick Carroll » Sat Apr 07, 2007 6:36 pm
^^^I hope you watched Stephanie Gilmore win at Bells yesterday on a board shaped by... a really good surfboard designer.
Look Cougar, all surfers have different body shapes. Humans vary physically more between individuals than they do between genders. Surfing's not a gender thing, it's a skill and natural talent and persistence and speed of learning curve thing, and most of all -- especially as you improve -- it's a profoundly individual thing. In designing boards solely for women, you were barking up the same wrongly angled tree as you've no doubt accused a lot of men of doing....and you cadged ten grand out of the Govt in the process.
Make a great board for an exceptional surfer, that woulda been your challenge as a surfboard maker. The rest of it is just babble.