Pennybacker's Place in the Waves

As Hawai‘i surfing culture grows, so the number of surfing women grows.

We know that in traditional times wahine were among the most prominent surfers. However as part of Hawai‘i’s colonization by westerners, surfing was discouraged through most of the nineteenth century. While surfing during the early twentieth century was almost exclusively a male activity, since the end of World War II, the number of women in the surf zone has steadily increased. Today, about one in four surfers in Hawai’i is wahine.

Surfing is always place-centric, and Mindy Pennybacker’s new book, Surfing Sisterhood Hawai‘i: Wahine Reclaiming the Waves, describes communities of wahine surfers who are regulars at the surf breaks she knows well. These are recreational surfers, mothers and surfing sisters, many of whom Pennybacker has known since she was a teenager. She grew up on the side of Diamond Head, near the surf spots Tonggʻs and Suis (aka Suicides). She is a Punahou grad, a Stanford grad, an Iowa Writers Workshop grad, a member of the bar in California, and a mother.

Pennybacker shows how surfing has always had kinship to music, and by extension to dance:

When I am riding a wave, I feel in the moment and alive. All my senses are engaged. I feel its countours under my feet, hear the hum of my board planing the surface and the crunch and explosion of whitewaver, the wind whistling in my ears and the quiet when Iʻm pitched underwater or, miraculously, rarely, find myself inside the tube, that blue room. On the good rides, I feel relaxed and loose, going with the flow, alternating bursts of stright-ahead speed and cutting back with turns that splash whitewater like accent marks in a musical phrase. (169)

She reminds the reader that Hi‘iaka, the Hawaiian goddess of hula, is also a surfer.

Overall, Surfing Sisterhood is more about the sociology of wahine surfing than about aesthetic or spiritual experience. For wahine surfers, the obstacles have been, and continue to be, considerable. Catching a wave is never easy, but add to that the deeply-embedded societal problem of sexism, and the matter is complicated by harrassment directed at women by men.

Surfing is governed by its own mores, sometimes called surfing etiquette, but the rules of etiquette occasionally transform what seems to be an orderly sharing of waves into various forms of harrassment and intimidation. Every time a group of surfers begins paddling to catch an approaching wave, the question arises — Who owns the wave? This becomes an increasingly critical matter as numbers of surfers continue to rise, and the competition for particular waves intensifies. In some ways, the surf zone is a crucible for the study of social conflict, and potentially, its resolution.

Surfing Sisterhood will doubtless be added to reading lists for high school and college students because it shows how the so-called etiquette is sometimes shaped by an aggressive sexism that hinges on what is sometimes called the male gaze, the complex of behaviors that forms one of contemporary society’s most fundamental modes of oppression. However, through the interviews and insights that comprise Penneybacker’s narrative, the reader is provided with a view of emerging changes. Specifically, the changes are coming from groups of women who share responsibilities as mothers and care providers, and learn from one another how to navigate the complex situations that arise in the surf zone.

For example, Carissa Moore, Hawai‘i’s Olympic gold medalist in surfing, along with her sister, Cayla, have founded Moore Aloha, to support and empower girls and women to be assertive and confident. Other oganizations, like Surfing Moms, function as mutual support groups where moms take turns surfing and watching one another’s kids on the beach.

Surfing in Hawai‘i is under-valued. Not by surfers, of course, but by government and policy. But as Pennybacker explains, lobbying by wahine surfers has resulted in advancements in policies that govern the issuance of permits for surfing contests. Policies now require gender equality. 

Pennybacker’s prose style is joyful. Although surfing sites need protection from development and overuse, and surfing etiquette may need revision, Surfing Sisterhood offers a picture of surfing as a nurturing social environment that’s conducive to the fulfillment of mutual needs. Sociologists sometime use the word effervescence to describe the magnified positivity of groups, and in the case of Surfing Sisterhood other similar words also come to mind, like essence, as in essential, or bioluminescence, as in full of light when disturbed by motion.

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Surfing Sisterhood Hawai‘i: Wahine Reclaiming the Waves
by Mindy Pennybacker
Mutual Publishing, 190 pp., $21.95

Mindy Pennybacker is a long-time journalist and essayist, who is currently a columnist for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. She is also the author of Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices (St. Martins Press).

Banner image by Rafael Leao. Surfing image by Eric Y. Yanagi. Headshot by Craig T. Kojima.