“We make girls out of women”
WTF?
Look, I don’t want to sound like a snarky, pedantic ole’ bitch (although it has been known). After all anything that gets more women out in the surf enjoying themselves is an awesome thing. But I’m baffled that one of the world’s most popular surf camps would use the motto “we make girls out of women”.
To me it begs the question ….”what’s wrong with being a woman?”
In the context of this motto a girl sounds like someone fun, lively and care-free. Whereas a woman is someone staid, boring and unattractive. The thing is I call myself a ‘woman’ but I also think I’m fun. Like most people when I was in my teens I was plagued by insecurities. Who wants to go back to that? I think as women get older we develop a much stronger sense of compassion, wisdom, resilience and patience. Surely these are not qualities to be sniffed at? I believe these qualities actually help me enjoy my surf sessions more. To be fair I can’t just point my finger at one motto. I also notice that women’s surf magazines are obsessed with calling women ‘girls’, even though I suspect the majority of their readership are financially independent women.
Of course there will always be some men who prefer vulnerable and naive girls to over-confident and (gasp) opinionated women. The best way to deal with these men is with pity. They need to be pitied, and then patted on the head and sent off on their sad, lonely way. Alternatively we can just buy these men a plastic blow up doll. I believe they cost around £15 on the internet.
But back to the motto and luckily, I have an easy answer to the conundrum facing this surf camp, and that is that they simply switch the words around, so it becomes…
“We make women out of girls”