Although surfing has been a spectator sport since its inception in pre-western Hawaii, it jars me to hear organizers, commentators or surfers describe contests as entertainment. Because traditionally, surfing was also spiritual, and pure play: When the waves got good, everybody, women and men, left work and paddled out to sea.

That said, surfing is inherently competitive, and the first surf contest known to be recorded in English was won by a woman, as I discovered researching my new book, “Surfing Sisterhood Hawai‘i: Women Reclaiming the Waves.”

A man called Poepoe was the designated favorite to win the Kamehameha Day event off Lahaina, Maui, on June 11, 1877. But he was upset by his wife, Nakookoo, who “shoots like a flying fish through the whitening foam, jostles the champion on his wonted plank of victory, and came in foremost amid the outcries of a delighted multitude glad that the woman had won,” according to the local, English-language newspaper shared with me by Hawaiian historian John Clark.

Today, that jostling might have earned either Poepoe or Nakookoo an interference call, depending on position and priority. Regardless, the woman might not have won, according to current judging criteria, which since the mid-20th century have been defined by men.

These criteria, as applied by panels of 4-5 anonymous judges, were recently catapulted into controversy by the outcome of the men’s finals at the World Surf League’s Surf Ranch Pro on May 28, where Californian Griffin Colapinto was awarded first place over Brazilian Italo Ferreira.

They include commitment and degree of difficulty, combination and variety of innovative and progressive maneuvers, and speed, power and flow.

Both Colapinto and Ferreira demonstrated speed and power and barrel rides, with Colapinto, most said, carving more beautiful, flowing turns while Ferreira combined more radical maneuvers, launching himself repeatedly into the air.

However, the judges awarded Ferreira a relatively low score of 8.3 for his best ride, and it cost him the championship.

The WSL’s broadcast moderators expressed surprise at the number, and an outcry of protest on social and surf media triggered a formal response from WSL CEO Erik Logan, who defended the judges’ decisions and chastised complainants for not taking official protest channels.

Meanwhile, Hawaii’s five-time world champ and Olympic gold medalist Carissa Moore handily won the women’s trophy with barrels, aerial maneuvers, power hacks and flowing turns that earned her a 9.6 ride, one of the highest received by surfers of either gender in the event.

The victory, her third this season, put Moore back in the yellow No. 1 leader’s jersey. In the current El Salvador event, on call through Sunday, she again took to the air as she surfed into a quarterfinal berth.

The other women leaders on the CT tour — Tyler Wright, Stephanie Gilmore, and young up-and-comers Bettylou Sakura Johnson, Caitlin Simmers and Molly Picklum are also pushing old criteria into new frontiers with creativity and guts, performing top-level technical maneuvers and demonstrated breathtaking speed and power.

In 2022, for the first time, the CT women were finally fielded in the same venues as the men and surfed big barrels at Pipeline and Sunset Beach; in January, the first six women invitees surfed alongside men at the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational at Waimea Bay.

Yet most male surfers continue to declare that females can’t surf big waves, barrels, aerials and other progressive maneuvers as well as men, and aren’t as fun to watch.

Ask the other half of the human race, as well as unbiased males, and you’ll hear that there has always been greater variety and flow with the wave in women’s surfing.

And just recently, judging has trended toward giving more points for classic power turns in the pocket, and less for the so-called progressive surfing maneuvers — tight, shredding hacks, aerials and spins derived from skateboarding — that garnered top points in the recent past.

Male competitors like Colapinto seem to be tumbling to this, toning down the pyrotechnics while going for more beautiful, rhythmic, organic flow.

Surfing is opening up its parameters and it looks like women will be leading the way.