Diving for fish and tako in Kāneʻohe Bay with her dad helped Chelsea Kahalepauole-Bizik become extremely comfortable in the ocean as a young girl — a necessary skill for a future lifeguard.

She was also raised in a house with her dad, her uncle and two brothers, which made her comfortable around men — another trait essential for wāhine lifeguards in Hawaiʻi. 

Kahalepauole-Bizik, 34, is Oʻahu’s first wāhine ocean safety lieutenant in a department where 17 of 300 lifeguards — less than 6% — are women.

Honolulu’s Ocean Safety Department has one of the lowest rates of female lifeguards in the country, according to a survey of 63 agencies within the United States Lifesaving Association, a nonprofit association of open water lifeguards, which includes rescuers at beaches, lakes and rivers. Women made up about 27% of the surveyed agencies. Nearly half of the agencies had rates over 30%. 

Current and former lifeguards, as well as ocean safety officials, aren’t sure why the rates in Hawaiʻi remain so low. The rate is similar across all counties. On Kauaʻi, 6% of lifeguards are female, in Maui County 9% and in Hawaiʻi County 5%. 

It’s not that women aren’t up to the task. Wāhine lifeguards patrol some of the state’s most dangerous stretches of coastline, including the North Shore and Sandy Beach on Oʻahu and Mākena Beach on Maui, which has one of the state’s highest rates of spinal cord injuries. 

They’ve climbed the ranks to become a lieutenant in Honolulu and a captain on Maui. 

In Honolulu, lifeguard Kapua Chang, 30, became the department’s first woman jet ski operator in 2024, which requires passing an extreme physical exam that includes deadlifting 275 pounds, pushing a jet ski through sand and kicking it through the water with only fins. The weight training is necessary to haul and maneuver the skis, which can weigh up to 900 pounds when loaded with fuel. 

In four of the last six recruit classes, women have passed at higher rates than men. The challenge is that only a handful of women apply each year, even as women’s aquatic sports, like pro surfing, have been gaining recognition and popularity.  

Women have historically been underrepresented in first responder roles. Nationally, they make up just 12% of police officers and 9% of firefighters.

Some police departments around the country have modified their physical testing standards after tests were found to be discriminatory to women by overly focusing on muscular endurance and upper-body strength rather than agility and fitness skills needed for the job. 

But there hasn’t been talk of altering lifeguarding fitness standards, which haven’t changed since the ’90s, said Cathy VonWald, president of the U.S. Lifesaving Association’s Northwest Region. 

“You have to be able to swim, and you have to swim a timed distance in order to be an effective rescuer,” she said. “So there would not be a reason to change that.” 

VonWald in 2024 helped establish the Women of Water Committee within the U.S. Lifesaving Association to investigate what barriers are keeping women from becoming lifeguards. Last year’s survey of member agencies was the first step. Going forward, the committee plans to come up with strategies for how departments can recruit more women.

Women who spend their days scanning the ocean for distressed swimmers, patrolling big waves and educating beachgoers about the dangers of the sea say they’d like to see agencies target their outreach toward young women and girls to get them interested in first responder jobs and break down stereotypes that the roles are better suited for men. 

It’s about providing equal opportunities to women who could have fulfilling careers as first responders and also about serving the public with a workforce that reflects their community, said Marine Safety Capt. Maureen Hodges, who oversees lifeguards in San Diego, where roughly 30% of the rescuers are women. That figure includes beach and pool lifeguards.  

Hodges said an annual, two-day camp for girls hosted by her city’s fire department has been helping introduce young women to careers as first responders. 

“Having women be a part of that service is really important to the public,” she said, “because half of who we’re serving out there are women.” 

Breaking Down Barriers 

Out of Honolulu Ocean Safety’s last six try-out sessions, women passed at higher rates than men in all but two of them. But fewer than five women tried out each time, compared to between 23 and 34 men. 

To pass the physical exam at tryouts, lifeguard candidates need to run 1,000 yards and swim 1,000 yards in under 25 minutes, said Kurt Lager, the newly appointed director of the Honolulu Ocean Safety Department. They must also do a run-swim-run that is 100 yards each in under three minutes and complete a 400-yard paddle on a 12-foot rescue board in under four minutes. 

Even after they join the department, lifeguards must pass the test every year to show they’re maintaining their physical fitness. Wāhine lifeguards say women may be intimidated by the idea of the physical exam and deterred from even trying. 

“Females sometimes just feel like they just can’t do it, and I really want to take that away,” said Rachel Hillen, 28, an ocean safety administrative lieutenant on Maui who previously worked as a guard at Mākena Beach. “I think you just really have to put your mind and body into it.”

Chang, the Honolulu jet ski operator, said she continuously trained for about three years to pass the additional physical exam required to operate the machine. She grew up dirtbiking in Lāʻie and said she became fascinated with jet skis when she joined ocean safety in 2021. 

“It could be intimidating for some females to consider jumping into a male-dominated field,” she said, “but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t women that are capable.” 

Ocean safety officials both locally and nationally agree Hawaiʻi is one of the most difficult places in the country to be a lifeguard. 

Oʻahu alone has over 200 miles of coastline with a variety of ocean conditions, including 30-foot waves on the North Shore, dangerous shorebreak at Sandy Beach and Makapuʻu and powerful rip currents in the channel at Hanauma Bay.

“We literally have every kind of ocean condition that you can find anywhere in the world on one island, sometimes all in one day,” Lager said. 

It can be harder for women to break into male-dominated fields where there are particularly dangerous conditions because the men in those roles are often strongly bonded and can have trouble trusting newcomers, said Kelly Gregory, a researcher at the University of Toronto who last year authored a study on women in first responder roles, including firefighting. 

“There’s a really strong need, a legitimate need, to belong within that group,” she said, “because they are quite literally pulling each other, sometimes, out of burning buildings and entrusting each other’s lives with other team members.”  

Another factor is that Hawaiʻi is one of the few places where lifeguarding is a year-round endeavor. 

Of the agencies surveyed by the U.S. Lifesaving Association, the Honolulu Ocean Safety Department was the second largest but had by far the highest number of full-time employees. 

Of the agencies surveyed, 30% of seasonal lifeguards were women compared to 12% of full-time lifeguards, indicating many women may see lifeguarding as a part-time opportunity rather than a career. 

‘One Of The Boys’ 

While more women have entered the field and climbed the ranks in recent years, two decades ago, lifeguarding on Oʻahu was a “boys club,” said Suzy Stewart, one of the first female lifeguards to work the North Shore. 

Stewart, who goes by “Sunset Suzy,” retired in 2005 when there were just a handful of women lifeguards. One woman, Debbie Wayman, had guarded in Haleʻiwa, but Stewart was the first woman to guard Banzai Pipeline and Waimea Bay, areas on Oʻahu that can have 20- to 30-foot swells during winter. 

She remembers when she started in the mid-90s, she received some discouraging comments from her male coworkers who didn’t think she’d be able to make rescues in the big waves. She also got skeptical looks from beachgoers and recalls trying to disguise herself in a big coat and hat so people wouldn’t be able to tell she was a woman. 

It took her making two major rescues at Pipeline and Waimea Bay to gain the respect of her male colleagues, she said. 

On her first big rescue, she charged into 12-foot waves at Pipeline to rescue a 200-to 250-pound tourist who had been dragged out to sea. 

“The guys were on the walkie-talkies, you know, their radios, and they were like, ‘Oh, watch this. This is going to be funny,’” she said. “’She’s going to just not be able to make it out there.’”

Stewart reached the man, hauled him onto her board and started to paddle back in, fighting against his weight that kept submerging the front of the board and straining to get ahead of a giant set of waves rolling in behind them. 

“I’m looking behind me like, ‘Oh my god, this is it,’” she said. “I’m going to be the laughing stock of the whole North Shore.” 

She was able to paddle in far enough so that when the waves broke, they got hit by the whitewater, which helped push them into shore. She remembers her fellow lifeguards clapping when she made it to the sand. 

“I felt like I was one of them,” she said. “Instead of just a girl, I felt like I was one of the boys on the team.” 

Changing Recognition 

Surfing and lifeguarding have always been tightly linked.

Eddie Aikau, Hawaiʻi’s legendary big wave surfer, was the first official North Shore lifeguard hired by the City and County of Honolulu in 1969. Rell Sunn, one of Honolulu’s first female lifeguards hired in 1975 and known as the “Queen of Mākaha,” where she was stationed, was also a champion surfer. 

Stewart says she has seen attitudes changing toward women in the water, especially in surf culture. 

While female surfers still face challenges, they’ve gained respect since the first pro surf competition to include women, the Smirnoff World Pro-Am Surfing Championships, was held in 1975, said Patti Paniccia, a pro surfer who founded the group Women’s Surfing Hui and was instrumental in getting women incorporated into the championships. The following year, she founded the Women’s Division of International Professional Surfing, the first pro circuit and ranking system for female surfers. 

In the ’70s and ’80s, female surfers struggled to get publicity, she said. Professional photographers wouldn’t photograph them because magazines weren’t interested in buying those pictures. Sponsors and members of the media often didn’t take them seriously either. 

Paniccia remembers being asked by reporters if she had ever surfed in the nude. 

A 1975 Honolulu Star-Bulletin article about female surfers begins by stating, “Many women traditionally have considered sports boring.” It goes on to describe female athletes as “curiosities who probably are endowed with too many male hormones.” 

The following year, female surfers competing in South Africa received an offer for sponsorship from the owner of a bikini company called Candypants. 

“We told him no,” Paniccia told the Honolulu Star Advertiser at the time. “We’re professional athletes.”

In 1994, the surfwear brand Roxy sponsored surfer Lisa Andersen, who two years later appeared on the cover of Surfer magazine with the line “Lisa Andersen Surfs Better Than You.” 

That changed the perception of female surfers around the world, Paniccia said. 

In 2018, California ruled that prize money for female surfers had to be the same as that of the men for competitions to use public beaches. The World Surf League followed suit and changed its standards to offer women equal prize money at its competitions in Hawaiʻi. 

In recent years, women’s surfing has “gone through the roof,” Paniccia said. Women now make up more than a third of the surfing community, according to a 2024 Surf Industry Members Association report. 

So far, the explosion of female surfers hasn’t resulted in a similar spike in female lifeguards in Hawaiʻi. 

‘Under A Microscope’ 

Wāhine lifeguards say representation matters, and they hope that young women and girls who see them in the tower, on the beach or in the water will feel inspired. For them, encouraging other women and girls to consider careers in lifeguarding is the best way to increase their numbers. 

For Hillen, growing up with role models like her father, Randy Hillen, who was a Maui lifeguard, and Maui Ocean Safety Capt. Kekai Brown, the state’s first female ocean safety captain, helped her envision a future for herself in lifeguarding.

“All my heroes were in yellow and red,” she said, referencing the colors of the Maui lifeguard uniform. “I didn’t even know who Batman and Superman was.” 

But being one of the few women in the field can also come with a lot of pressure to perform well and not make mistakes that could reflect poorly on female lifeguards as a whole. 

“It’s almost like I’m under a microscope,” said Chang, the jet ski operator in Honolulu. “I want to make sure I give them confidence, and the guys I’m working with, to let them know, ‘I got it.’” 

Despite the pressure, the wāhine lifeguards described the men in their departments as brothers.

Kahalepauole-Bizik, the ocean safety lieutenant in Honolulu, recalled a rescue she made at Hanauma Bay before becoming a lieutenant while five months pregnant with her son. As she made her way to the swimmer who appeared to be in distress after he couldn’t touch the bottom, a coworker paddled behind her to back her up. 

“‘Chelsea, let me take the patient,’” she said her colleague told her. “I was like, ‘No, no, it’s fine. I got it.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, but your belly.’”

She thanked him but told him she could handle it. She reached the swimmer, who she thinks was about 170 pounds, loaded him onto her board and paddled him into shallow water. Although she completed the rescue successfully, she said that was the moment she decided she needed to take a break from the beach. 

“I’m like, OK, it’s not so much that I can’t do the job, but I don’t want my coworkers to be feeling like they need to do more,” she said. “Because they’re nice guys.” 

Kahalepauole-Bizik then transferred to ocean safety’s emergency dispatch center, where she worked as a dispatcher until the day she gave birth. 

She went back to dispatch for a few months, but by the time her son was around six months old, she had passed the physical fitness test again and was back on the beach. 

Lager said he hopes that as women’s water sports like pro surfing continue to gain popularity, it will create a pipeline of young women with the skills to become lifeguards. In the last few years, he said he’s noticed the county’s junior lifeguard program has often been made up of half girls. 

The free, one-week program for kids ages 11-17 serves between 900 to 1,000 youth a year. He said the department does not keep statistics on the gender breakdown of junior lifeguard classes.  

On Kauaʻi, where just four of the county’s 69 lifeguards are women, Fire and Ocean Safety Operation Chief David Kalani Vierra said he created an internship program for 13- to-16-year-old aspiring lifeguards and is committed to giving half of the annual slots to girls. Last year, the program’s first year, the department had two female interns and two male interns. 

“I want to make sure that females have that opportunity also,” he said, “to make sure that females have the same amount of experience as the guys do.” 

Kahalepauole-Bizik said she’d encourage any woman who loves the ocean to consider becoming a lifeguard. It’s challenging both physically and emotionally, she said, but she’s proud to be able to rescue and resuscitate people for a living.

“When you pull someone out of the water, or when you work on somebody and they come back, and they sit up and they’re just like, ‘What just happened?’ It is the craziest, most rewarding feeling,” she said, “knowing that you just brought somebody’s dad back, or somebody’s grandfather, brother, mother, sister.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story included an incorrect name for a university.

Civil Beat’s reporting on women’s and girls’ issues is funded in part by the Frost Family Foundation.