Mamala Would Go: Stories of Women Who Charge - Beth O’Rourke

Diva Cup 2025 video and edit by Beth O’Rourke

Definitely a charger, Beth O’Rourke is one of those women who somehow manages to be everything at once: single mother, loyal friend, athlete, surfer, mentor to young women surfers and filmmakers, community supporter, award-winning filmmaker, and artist. She’s been telling transformational stories since the early ’90s, and her love of the ocean and California coastline shows up in everything she creates. Her work has that rare mix of soul, and a slightly rebellious, out-of-the-box edge that I’ve always admired.

I first met Beth at the very first Queen of the Point in Malibu. Before we even spoke, I noticed her running up and down the beach, a whirlwind of energy, encouraging the women competitors in the contest before they paddled out, cheering for the young girls and women on their performance and praising them when they came in. That energy carried straight into her own heat when she competed.

From that day on, Beth became a friend, a sounding board, and a huge part of Mamala’s journey. She’s helped with graphics, photography, short films and responsible for Mamala’s tagline, “May the world be your ocean.” Our customers connect deeply with that line, and it’s absolutely perfect!

Beth is a punk rocker at heart and fearless in speaking her mind, which is exactly why I wanted to sit down with her for Mamala Would Go. So we asked her a few questions.

The fight for equality and representation for women in the surf industry, how are we doing?

There are so many ways to answer this. Surf equality and representation have been a trending topic that has gained more exposure over the last decade. We’ve reached a few key milestones that indicate forward progress. Let’s take a look at the numbers and do the math.

Women have been fighting for equal rights in the United States for over a century. And if you look closely, the fight for equality in the surf industry has followed almost the same tide, two steps forward, one step back, with progress that often looks better on paper than it feels in the lineup.

The good news? Women are showing up.

Today, women make up nearly 40% of all surfers in the US, a number that has grown steadily over the last decade, driven largely by Gen Z and Millennial women who are paddling out in record numbers. That is not a footnote. That is a movement.

And at the professional level, the World Surf League made history in 2019 by becoming the first US-based global sports league to offer equal prize money to men and women across all its events. That is a genuine milestone worth acknowledging.

But let’s do the math.

In the US, women make up roughly 35% of surfers, about 1.5 million women in the water. Globally, the number rises to nearly 40%. That is not a niche demographic. That is a market.

Yet the numbers tell a different story when it comes to investment. The WSL Championship Tour still fields twice as many men as women. The total prize pool pays men $187,000 more annually, not because women earn less per athlete, but simply because fewer competition spots are available.

It goes beyond competition. Men hold 85% of leadership roles in the surf industry, which means men are largely the ones deciding who gets sponsored, who gets featured, and who gets a platform.

This is where Title IX is worth mentioning. Passed in 1972, it prohibits gender discrimination in any educational program receiving federal funding, and its impact on women in sports has been real. Before Title IX, girls made up just 7% of high school athletes. Today, that number is 41%. Female participation in college sports has grown by over 600%. It opened doors that had been firmly shut for generations.

But Title IX applies to schools, not to professional sports organizations or private industry. The surf industry, the WSL, and surf brands are not bound by it. So while Title IX moved the needle significantly for women as athletes, it could not legislate what happens once they turn pro, or what a surf brand decides to spend on a male versus a female athlete.

The broader wage gap also reflects this pattern. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2024, American women earned just 82.7 cents for every dollar earned by men, and the gap actually widened from the year before. In surf, as in most industries, the headline numbers look like progress while the fine print tells a harder truth.

When women do get media coverage in surfing, the disparity goes beyond quantity. Thrasher Magazine, the most influential publication in action sports, featured women on only 8 of its 536 covers in its entire history. Transworld Skateboarding, its closest rival, featured exactly one woman on its cover in 36 years of publishing. Surf media has followed a similar pattern, with women historically more likely to appear in a bikini than in a barrel.

Sponsorship tells the same story. Female athletes across action sports receive a fraction of the brand investment that male athletes command. Women-led surf events receive just 18% of corporate sponsorship dollars allocated to the sport. And when women do land coverage, the focus has often been on how they look rather than how they surf, a dynamic that does not serve athletes, brands, or the growing audience of women who are showing up in the water every day.

The Olympics changed some of this. Equal representation in surfing’s Olympic debut at Tokyo 2021 put women on the world’s biggest stage, on the same waves, under the same spotlight. Viewership followed. So did interest. The pipeline of young female surfers coming up behind that moment is the strongest it has ever been.

But a pipeline means nothing without investment at the other end.

So where do we go from here?

Progress in women’s surfing is real. Prize money parity, Olympic inclusion, and a growing generation of female surfers rewriting what the sport looks like are all signs that the tide is shifting. But parity on paper is not the same as equality in practice. The math still doesn’t add up.

The brands, media outlets, and organizations that control investment and visibility in this sport have a choice. They can wait for culture to catch up, or they can lead it. History shows that meaningful change in women’s sports has rarely come from patience. It has come from women who paddled out anyway, competed anyway, and demanded to be seen on their own terms.

That is exactly why companies like Mamala exist. Not as a consolation prize for a sport that forgot women, but as a direct response to an industry that underestimated them. When the mainstream surf industry wasn’t designing for women’s bodies, performing for women’s needs, or investing in women’s futures, women built their own infrastructure.

The question is no longer whether women belong in surfing. That was settled a long time ago, actually in ancient Hawaii, where women were celebrated as among the finest wave riders in the world. The question now is whether the industry will finally catch up to the women who never stopped paddling.

There’s been a lot of conversation lately about lineup etiquette and who “belongs” in the lineup. What’s your take?

The lineup has always had its own social code. Locals, groms, longboarders, shortboarders, beginners, pros - everyone navigating the same peak, the same sets, the same unwritten rules. And for the most part, those rules exist for good reason. Right of way, reading the wave, not snaking - these are about safety and respect, not gatekeeping.

But let’s be honest. For a lot of women, the lineup has never felt entirely welcoming. Being dropped in on, talked over, or simply ignored when you’re sitting in position - these are experiences so common they barely register anymore. And that normalization is exactly the problem.

The question of who belongs in the lineup is really a question of who belongs in surfing at all. And history has not been kind with its answer. Pauline Menczer won the women’s world surfing championship in 1993. She received no prize money. The trophy they handed her was damaged. Pam Burridge, a world champion in her own right, described the experience of being a woman in surf culture as feeling like “a family you’re not allowed to belong to.” These are not ancient grievances. These are the lived experiences of women who were world-class surfers, competing and winning at the highest level, while the industry looked the other way.

Male surfing has been mythologized in a way few other sports can match. Its athletes are legends, its moments are sacred, and its history is endlessly documented and celebrated. Women’s surfing has largely been written out of that story, even though women were riding waves in ancient Hawaii long before surfing became a for-profit commercial enterprise.

Nobody owns the ocean. She is a vast, mysterious wilderness that belongs to all of us and needs our protection far more than she needs our egos. And that’s exactly why she deserves to be approached with humility.

So before you paddle out, read the room. Note the locals. Take a back seat even when you’re frothing. Sit wide, watch a few sets, get a feel for the pecking order. Every break has its own rhythm and its own community, and dropping in on that without a second thought is the surf equivalent of walking into someone’s garden, picking all the ripe vegetables, and leaving without so much as a thank you.

We’ve all been out there when that one person shows up and the whole lineup lets out a collective sigh. Main character energy is not a vibe anyone paddled out for. The ocean doesn’t judge. She’ll offer a wave to anyone willing to show up with respect. The lineup should work the same way.

What’s a question you’ve never been asked but would love to answer?

"Will you forgive me for burning you on every set wave?"

Mamala Surf Video & Edit Beth O’Rourke

Beth’s documentaries have screened at festivals around the world, from the Hawaii International Film Festival, Florida Surf Film Festival, Save the Waves Film Festival, Patagonia Film Festival, Surf at Lisbon Film Festival, Women’s Sports Film Festival, San Diego Surf Film Festival, and the Women’s Surf Film Festival. Her work has been featured in The Surfer’s Journal, Surfer Magazine, Inertia, Surfline, Whalebone Magazine, Blue Magazine (Japan), and KCET Los Angeles. Commercial clients include Benefit Cosmetics, Kassia Surf, Vans, Universal Music Group, Carve Designs, FlexPower, Onda Wellness, Withitgirl, Mamala Surf, and Rancho Organics.

For more video by Beth O’Rourke visit https://vimeo.com/bethorourke‍ and follow her on Instagram.