Category: Media
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Skate Book Launched
I’ve just returned from sunny San Diego to some Pacific Northwest winter rain (sob!) but am still riding that author’s high a month after seeing my book published and on bookstore shelves! Girl Gangs, Zines, and Powerslides: A History of Badass Women Skateboarders was released on September 16th with ECW Press, and the whole experience…
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Concrete Surfer comics
“The Concrete Surfer” comic series from the pages of Jinty teen mag in 1978 by Pat Mills (writer) and Christine Ellingham (illustrator) was compiled and re-released thanks to the Treasury of British Comics in 2020 and it is pure gold. If you love comics and have an ounce of nostalgia for skateboarding in the 1970s,…
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Check it Out magazine
In the mid-1990s, a group of Brazilian girls came together with a unique vision that would evolve into the publication Check it Out, which would have a profound effect on women skaters internationally. Photo: the cover of the very first zine from 1995 next to the creator, Liza grinding a mini-ramp in 1999 It all…
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Villa Villa Cola
In 1996, skateboarding twins Tiffany Morgan (Campbell) and Nicole Morgan (Young) decided not to use a college fund that their parents had set aside for education, but rather to use the money to start a female-focused skateboard and apparel company. Lisa Whitaker of Meow Skateboards recalled that the sisters tried to pitch their idea to…
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Canadian Skurfing
In Canada, we do things and call things a little differently than our American counterparts. Thanks to a friend and former Skirtboarder, Frédérique Luyet I was directed towards archival footage and an article from the CBC about “skurfing.” The definition of “skurfing” according to the Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail was “a craze which…
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50-50 Skate Zine by Zanna
50-50 Skate Zine: Skateboarding and Gender by Zanna of Portland, Oregon came out in September 1999 and was 54 pages in length full of wisdom, rage, activism, insight and skateboarding! On the very first page, Zanna highlighted a scathing letter from the Mailbox page of Thrasher from August 1999 (issue #223) that condemned women skaters,…
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French Skate Mag
My love for France continues! In 1978, the popular French magazine “Skate” produced eight issues, two of which feature female skaters on their cover, which is a fantastic ratio in gender equity compared to other skateboard publications. Kim Cespedes is killing it on Issue No. 2 in March/April demonstrating her gritty, laidback style (thanks to…
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Magazine Covers
When a skateboarder (and their photographer) discovers that a photo of them was chosen to grace the cover of a skateboarding magazine, it is a big deal worthy of a party and social media celebrations. Over the decades, this level of promotion has often eluded female and non-binary skaters which has meant that any cover…
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The Frumpies
The Frumpies were a punk band that formed in 1992 out of Olympia, WA who also happened to have skateboarding and Riot Grrrl connections. According to Wikipedia, the original members were Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Billy Karren (who all played in Bikini Kill) and Molly Neuman of Bratmobile, with the addition in 1993 of…
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Armpit zine
Armpit zine was the brainchild of Erika Dubé, a Quebecois skateboarder who had spent significant time in California, getting to know the crew behind the San Diego zine, Villa Villa Cola. Back in Montréal, Quebec, Erika determined that the local crew of female skateboarders, who would soon become known as The Skirtboarders in 2002, needed…
Womxn Skateboard History 