Withitgirl and the Multidimensionality of Women
Isabella Ingersoll ‘25 (she/her)
In our world there often exists a dichotomy: art or sport. From a young age, we wait for our children to choose between their piano lessons or their soccer practices, art class or P.E. If they don’t pick a clear discipline and dare to mix the physical and the creative, parents are left footing the bill— which can be prohibitively expensive. And here, clearly, is where the disciplines intersect: accessibility. Namely, gatekeeping.
Art and sport spaces are often closed-off with unrealistic criterias for skill that pushes away beginners, or in some cases, pushes away individuals with marginalized identities. Only 16.4% of professional athletes in the US are female, and 78% are white. And, as we’ve touched on, action sports, like surfing, skiing, and skating, can be expensive, often requiring ownership of costly gear, preventing beginners from advancing, or low-income individuals from transcending past this cost barrier. The art world suffers from these same trends. 73.6% of professional artists are white, and male artists make more money than female artists.
withitgirl does things differently.
An online platform wearing numerous hats, withitgirl aims to augment the voices of underrepresented individuals in surf, skate, and creative spaces. Through merging these worlds together, it works to attack norms of exclusivity through radical inclusivity within media platforms and action sports networks.
I had a conversation with its founder, Marialidia (Mols) Marcotulli, who’s journey towards launching the company was atypical.
When Marcotulli moved to the Bay Area in 1990, she was in her early 20s working in the tech world and forming her own information technologies company. But, while she was successful, the world left her unsatisfied.
“I really wanted to work in my jeans and have a virtual office,” she told me.
Simultaneously, Marcotulli fell headfirst into the rich culture of the Bay Area and all it had to offer, notably, art, surfing, and skating. She felt she had a choice, to further herself in either the tech world or the art world. The surf world also intrigued her, but she rarely saw women out in the waves, and so she was apprehensive to give it a try.
Mols Marcotulli- Founder of Withitgirl [Leah Vermulen Lopez]
Flash forward to 1996: Marcotulli found herself sitting on the beach in Sayulita, Mexico, participating, along with several other women, in Las Olas surf camp. She told me she accepted a friend’s invitation to attend the camp on a whim, inspired by her fascination with the idea of surfing, which was ignited by watching male surfers at San Francisco's Ocean Beach and hoping to see more women. Yes, she discovered how to surf at this camp, but more importantly, Marcotulli found a community.
“I looked at the girls around me, and I said, “we are all with it girls!’ And their eyes lit up, they understood what this meant to themselves personally and collectively.”
The idea of being “with-it,” of transcending past exclusionary gatekeeping, and giving yourself permission to show up, try something new, or to enter a seemingly closed-off space became the base of Marcotulli’s vocation, and she decided to start a company as soon as she returned home. She launched withitgirl at the end of 1999.
Not only does withitgirl merge action sports with creative culture, amplifying the voices of women in male-dominated spaces, it also provides a mindset that most women can relate to.
Marcotulli explained to me how the multi-dimensionality of women needs more recognition. “There’s something wrong on this landscape, you’re either a babe or a jock… What happened to the 99% of us, who love to do sports but we’re also writers, we do art or we’re musicians, what happened to girls being represented as total people?”
This multidimensionality combats the misconception of the binary between art and sport – most women, most people, want to excel in both spaces, and want to be accepted and included in both, regardless of level of experience.
Minna Stess (Professional Skater /USA Skate Olympic Team) with Violet Read (withitgirl writer and Bucky Fanzine Founder)
At first, withitgirl established itself by attending events, including All Girl Skate Jam, Wild Woman Water Day, Roxy Surf Classic, Action Sports Retail Expo, and local surf competitions in Northern and Southern California. Marcotulli and her team of writers, photographers, and artists, created stickers to hand out, and set up chairs with the company’s name written on the backs. She brought in an editor, and received help from a designer friend to map out the platform. During this time, the team was producing stories, and she received some initial funding while allowing her to bring in additional support, including a full-time editor, designers, and programmers, to lay out the entire platform. The fully functional site was launched on Nov. 19, 1999. Slowly, withitgirl grew and flourished.
Action sports are often dominated by men, and Marcotulli found entrepreneurship is largely the same. As the founder of a woman-owned company, she struggled to receive the same funding that other companies did. “You don’t hear about women companies getting the same [monetary investments],” she told me. Less than half of US businesses are woman-owned, and women only receive 7% of venture funds to start their own businesses.
This discrepancy further inspired her, as she wanted to shift the narrative, and create something that could employ women and create success for many, regardless of gender. In order for this to happen as well as it did, Marcotulli leaned into male support, which she acknowledged “opened up a lot of doors” for the company.
Marcotulli took a break from the platform in 2006, and withitgirl left the world for over a decade. During the pandemic, a young intern who was working with her during the summer of 2020 discovered Withitgirl, and asked Marcotulli if she would consider relaunching the platform. She said yes, and together with the help of a new group of girls and past withitgirls, they began to re-imagine withitgirl.Together, they create, launch, and publish podcasts, videos, stories, and art, all this work being funded by collaborations and donations.
Since its relaunch, withitgirl has been part of Vans’ media team to cover the Vans Duct Tape Events in Sayulita, Mexico and Huntington Beach and Vans Pipe Masters in Hawaii Dec. 7-11, 2022. withitgirl has also supported the film SheChange, a feature documentary which covers women’s achievements at Mavericks, an infamous surf competition in California.
Despite all this success, there’s still more work to be done. “We are at the very beginning of this inclusion and diversity piece,” Marcotulli explained, adding on how women shouldn’t be just added on to men’s achievements, but seen for their own, independent successes.
[Instagram: Skater Uktis]
“withitgirl is a very brand-fluid concept, withitgirl exists as an ideology,” she said at the end of our conversation. It’s a way to give oneself permission and agency to show up in spaces, and it’s a piece in the large puzzle of creating systemic change that can hopefully result in more inclusion and tolerance.
To conclude, Marcotulli hopes that this ideology can exist inside of all of this, and we can all contribute to it in our own way, “My hope is that each individual contributes to this ideology in a way that feels good to them, with grit and grace.”
