Good morning, Wentyl.

Earlier this week, one of our national education reporters, Darcy Fitzgerald, put forward a story idea. 

He’d seen a post from women’s advocacy group Collective Shout about a surf brand image of a young woman that they felt was overly sexual. I took a look, expecting to see an image from teen surf brand Ghanda that may, or may not, be perceived in that way. 

The image Darcy showed me stopped me in my tracks. As a mother who’s regularly bought this brand for my daughter and sons, I was stunned.

The catalogue photo was overtly sexual, drawing on a style of posing popularised by much older social media influencers and OnlyFans models. Other images showed young models with their legs spread in a range of suggestive poses. Young men in the catalogue were not presented in the same way.

A straw poll of the office revealed a range of reactions: younger people were less shocked, while older people felt it was totally inappropriate for a surf brand marketed to young female teens. 

We didn’t want to shame the model, but felt the story was important, because it’s another example of the incessant pressure on young women to be not just pretty but sexually attractive, or hot. 

It’s a new, higher bar that – luckily – didn’t exist when I was growing up in the 1980s.

In a week where the news agenda has been dominated by the shocking Sydney Swans revelations, not to mention rape accusations at two Sydney schools, the sexualisation of young girls by a national brand seems noteworthy. 

It’s damaging because it presents girls as sexual objects who are there for the gratification of boys, not active agents in their own right. The male gaze is ever-present.

Ghanda told us the campaign was led by an all-female photoshoot team and the posing was not directed by the brand. Read the story and judge for yourself.