Women’s roller derby has had a checkered history. Even now, with the modern version gaining speed and popularity, many people still associate derby with the staged, televised 1970s banked-track version of the sport. Those earlier iterations were made of pro teams with salaried players who often fought dirty to make their big bucks, and today the sport is still dogged by such stereotypes.
Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Today’s derby is played exclusively by amateur teams (for now, anyway). Its rules prohibit punching, elbowing and other forms of illegal and dangerous contact, and it’s the fastest growing sport in America at the moment. By far the greatest popularity and growth is currently enjoyed by all-women’s flat track roller derby, whose rules are made and regulated by the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA).
The growth of derby is due by and large by its appeal to and acceptance of all women. Without regard for body type, social class, job, age, race, ethnicity or sexuality, derby will accept you. I have been playing derby for two years now and have found it to be a satisfying and enjoyable way to meet new people, work out, and, for the first time ever, be an athlete. Many articles have even touted derby as promoting a good example of how sports can accept gay, lesbian and trans players, including an ESPN profile of Gotham Roller Girls’ star player Bonnie Thunders, who has been called the “LeBron James of roller derby.”
The author, “Jane AweStun,” in her derby gear.
While derby naturally attracts women who played team sports in school or college, it also attracts many women, like myself, who never played a team sport or who found them downright unappealing after being forced to play on co-ed teams in required gym classes. My own personal experience of team sports in school was of the kid always chosen last, who could neither kick nor catch a kickball very well and who, thus, did not really enjoy sports. Roller derby, with its grassroots appeal and its welcoming attitude, attracted me as soon as I heard about it.
I attended my first derby game on Long Island not long after seeing the film Whip It!, directed by Drew Barrymore. “Real” derby girls have faulted the film for its depiction of derby as a catty sport with lots of illegal hitting (and set on a banked track which, while they exist in the US, is far less popular due to the cost of buying, transporting, and maintaining a banked track). I was immediately impressed by how hard the women could hit—and fall!—and get right back up again. I hadn’t skated in over 10 years, but I wanted to learn everything I could about derby. A year later, I joined one of the leagues on Long Island and never looked back.
Shameless self-promotion: my blog post from 2012 about playing derby.
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Over and over again we hear in the news about studies that fault women with lack of confidence—in academia, in corporations, in politics, and in general. The “confidence gap” may be one of the biggest hurdles in moving the women’s movement forward. Why do women earn less? Speak up less? Allow others to take advantage of us? It may very well be because many of us feel that we deserve it.
Roller derby, by contrast, is a movement and a sport that actively encourages confidence. Most teams have practices at least twice a week—or more—and any derby girl who has gone to practices more or less consistently will agree that the jumps in your abilities are noticeable from month to month and year to year. In addition to the physical skills needed for success in the sport, such as speed, strength, endurance, agility, flexibility, leadership and teamwork skills are also vital to the sport and to the success of the team.
Another shameless plug: my blog post on derby and improvement.
Today’s roller derby teams are non-profit organizations, many of which struggle to find practice spaces, bout venues, and the funds to keep it all going. Derby teams must fundraise, recruit, coach, organize events, promote their events, and put together bouts that people will pay to watch. All of these aspects of the sport mean that in addition to coming to practices, players must also help the team stay afloat as a team. There is no “owner” with big bucks backing the team; there are no managers except the team players and their friends, parents, and partners who volunteer to help out.
Additionally, the team members all have their own lives; they are not pro players. They have families, jobs, and other commitments in their communities that they must keep up with in addition to practicing and helping the team stay afloat. Most women I have met in derby, however, welcome the commitment that roller derby requires because what it demands it more than makes up for in strength, confidence and friendship.
This is not to say that derby doesn’t have its problems. A recent article examined the problems of misogyny in derby itself. Likewise, teams can get overly-aggressive, captains can get dictatorial, and there can be a general unrest if the team is unhappy with its leadership. In some cases, these problems lead to schisms where a part of the team splits away from the original team to create their own team. Sometimes this leads to bad blood, but overall, it seems that this is how the sport grows. Girls who practice and never get to play get tired of waiting and form their own leagues and teams. This is, after all, how the modern sport started.
Some players believe that derby should be a pro sport or even an Olympic sport, since it is currently played in many countries around the world; others counter that the sport is still developing and needs time to finalize its rules and precedents. The sport is constantly growing and evolving, though, often in productive and exciting ways. There is junior roller derby for girls in middle and high school, and now, there is even college derby. This past spring, two college derby teams, from the University of Arizona and Arizona State University, played each other in the first ever college derby game. Fellow eighteenth-centuryist and “smack-ademic” Devoney Looser wrote about the game for Slate, making the argument that roller derby might be the light at the end of the tunnel for collegiate athletics, riddled as they are with problems ranging from unionization to sex scandals.
Ultimately, derby is not a perfect sport, but what it offers the women who play it is much greater than the sum of its parts. Knowing you can body check someone if need be, knowing that your big/small/whatever body has its successful athletic attributes, knowing that you can learn new skills your whole life, improve, and become stronger is knowledge that, for many women, makes derby more than worth it.
