In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Huntington Beach Public Library is hosting a panel of female surf icons on Tuesday, March 28, along with a book author who has helped document women’s role in growing the sport and its culture.
The discussion at the Main Street branch will feature surf writer Jim Kempton’s book, which was released last year, “Women on Waves: A Cultural History of Surfing, From Ancient Goddesses and Hawaiian Queens to Malibu Movie Stars and Millennial Champions.”
The 450-page book shines a light on female wave-riding accomplishments, as well as women’s struggles with sexism in the sea and on the sand.
World champion surfer Jericho Poppler, who graces the book’s cover, and Shannon Aikman, both original members of the Women’s International Surfing Association, will be among the panelists, talking about their struggles in the ’70s to fight for pay and contest equality.
“They are the ones telling the story, I’m just the one writing it down,” Kempton said. “It’s always a great time, all of those women are legendary and articulate, the crowd loves them. It’s a really fun experience.”
Kempton, president of the California Surf Museum, was inspired to pursue his book when the Oceanside museum curated a show about 10 years ago on the history of women in surfing, the most extensive exhibit ever pulled together on the subject, he said. During his research for the exhibit, he learned there hadn’t been a book documenting women’s surfing for more than 20 years, he said.
He credits his own early surf influence to a woman surfer: Gidget and the real life story of Kathy Kohner Zuckerman and the Malibu surf scene.
Kempton interviewed 120 women for the book and included some 700 women surfers. One theme that constantly came up? The struggles in and out of the water.
In the book, Kempton travels back in time to what’s considered the world’s oldest surfboard artifact, which belonged to a Hawaiian princess in the…
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