Spearfishing Huntress

She Wants to Talk Sustainability

Valentine Thomas, a 28-year old French Canadian, is a freediver who has chosen spearfishing as her sport. And she is very good at it. However, this summer an Instagram account known as Spear Sluts lifted a picture from her Instagram account that showed her on a beach with her spear gun preparing for a dive (the picture is the one that accompanies this post). And then it went viral.

I take exception to the ‘slut’ label just because she is a beautiful woman who chooses to swim in a bikini. I would hope that both women and men reading this would agree. How much attention would a good looking man in a bathing suit getting ready to go spearfishing get? Not even a mention, I would guess. Truly, another example of the double standard.

The following is an excerpt from an article from the Huffington Post by Carla Herreria.

What do you think?

The Daily Mail interviewed her at the end of June about the sexism she faces as one of the few women in the sport and called her the “glamorous spearfishing huntress.” Grind TV listed all the reasons they loved her, including one that stated she “bedazzles in a bikini.” Her own Instagram account grew from 8,000 to more than 30,000 followers in two months.

Online critics began questioning her spearfishing credentials, despite the many photos of Thomas actively hunting. People claimed that she only wanted attention and that all the photos that showed her in a bikini were proof of it.

“Let’s be real here,” one commenter wrote on a BuzzFeed story about Thomas. “95% of her fame is because she’s a hot chick posting pictures in a small bikini… if she was only in it to represent spear fishing, we’d see a whole lot more of THAT and a whole lot less of what she actually posts.”

“It affects my credibility,” Thomas, who holds a record for spearing the world’s largest Atlantic Jack, told HuffPost.

While Internet trolls try to focus on her looks, Thomas is hoping to steer the conversation to sustainable ways of eating, which, she says, is what made her get into spearfishing in the first place.

“What made me fall in love with spearfishing was the fact that I was picking my own food [with] no collateral damage,” Thomas said. “Spearfishing really made me look into where my food was coming from and I realized that everywhere you buy food in London, it comes from slaughter houses.”

Thomas says some of her critics confuse her love of spearfishing with taking joy in killing. Not so, she told BuzzFeed earlier this summer, noting that it wasn’t long ago that “if you couldn’t kill your own food, you wouldn’t eat.”

“I don’t do this because I enjoy killing things and because I enjoy fish suffering. I am just realistic about where food comes from.”

Looking back on her whirlwind summer, Thomas told HuffPost that all the attention has been “a double-edged sword.” Despite the Internet’s efforts to sexualize and sensationalize her, the publicity has led to various projects and offers, including TV shows. While she wouldn’t share any specifics, she says she’s hoping to parlay these offers into raising awareness about sustainable consumption habits.

“I’ve never claimed to be the best one,” Thomas says of her spearfishing career so far. “I’ve never claimed to be the prettiest one. I’ve never claimed to be anything. [Spearfishing] is just a sport I love.”

To read the entire article click here.