Is roller derby feminist?

I have been playing roller derby for 2 years now.  Before joining, I had a lot of concerns about feminism within the sport that I talked about here.  Roller derby presents itself as a feminist and queer-friendly sport.  At the same time, comparisons have been made to women's WWE wrestling regarding women playing a contact sport in revealing clothing while men watch and cheer them on.  So, when I think about whether roller derby is queer and feminist, my answer is it depends, and I'm going to explain why.


By Women, For Women

My favorite thing about roller derby is that it is organized by women for women.  Men participate, they can play (Merby - men's roller derby - has become a thing), but the people who make the decisions about how the sport is played, where it is played, when it is played and by whom are almost all women.  Leagues are started and run by women.  Sometimes they are coached by men, but more often than not, the teams I have played for and against were coached by women.  The refs are typically men and take a supportive role within the leagues.  I think the most important piece to this is that there are no men making money off of women's physicality within roller derby - ok, teams may pay rent to landlords, so there is monetary exchanges happening, but men do not own teams and profit off of the work that women are doing (unlike roller derby in the 70s).


Feminist fishnets?

If you see only a few pictures of the sport, you might think that roller derby involves putting on fishnet tights, wearing weird makeup, picking out a cheeky name, and then hitting each other while wearing roller skates.  All of that can be true, but sometimes it is not.  Skater's can typically wear whatever they want while skating - some wear basketball shorts, some wear padded shorts, some wear underwear and fishnets.  I think I wear more padding than anyone else on the track!

For me, feminism does not involve fishnet tights, but it also does not involve policing the clothing of others - take any argument made by a feminist regarding the slutwalk and place it here! I also think the fact that women are wearing protective equipment including helmets and mouthguards and are playing a sport that is aggressive (and derby stance is not particularly sexy in the conventional, playboy-posing sense of the word) also creates space to argue that fishnets can be feminist.  Feminism is all about contradictions, and there are plenty of those within the sport of roller derby.


Intersectionality

Most of the roller derby players that I have met have been white, able-bodied women aged 20-40 who can afford monthly dues and the cost of skates and equipment.  While I have played with and against Indigenous women and racialized women, and I know there are women on my team who struggle to come up with the funds to continue to play, I can't talk about roller derby without mentioning who is included and who is not.  I won't pretend to entirely understand the reasons for this, but I am sure they are complex (lower income for certain groups makes it harder to afford a several hundred dollar start up costs, not seeing people who look like you playing the sport makes it seem less desirable for you, cultural implications of dressing in specific ways and engaging in behaviors that are sometimes labelled "violent", etc etc).  There have also been a few recent criticisms of team logos for having racist symbols or culturally appropriation, which will definitely have an impact on who wants to play the sport.  These are issues that still need to be acknowledged and unpacked.

Gender policies vary by league and are quite complex.  I have met more trans and genderqueer folks through roller derby than through LGBTQ activist work unrelated to derby, so there is definitely something important going on here.  Many leagues have pride-themed bouts (that is the roller derby word for a game), and skaters often join pride parades and events.

Still, there is a policy upheld by WFTDA (Women's Flat Track Derby Association) requiring trans women to be on hormones, which can exclude those who do not have access to hormones.  A team can challenge the gender of a player, and that player will have to bring evidence of their gender to their team captain, which is invasive and problematic.  Several leagues have implemented policies where any female-identified player may join the women's teams, which I thought was a great policy until being part of a discussion about the role of a young trans boy in roller derby and now I am rethinking how gender is taken up in the sport.  I am by no means the expert here, but my opinion at the moment is that roller derby is among the most queer and trans-friendly sports that I have ever heard of, but that we still have work to do in order to make sure everyone is included in ways that they are comfortable with.


Empowerment

The part of roller derby that I have experienced as most feminist is the concept of sisterhood and empowerment.  Roller derby teams seem to operate more like a family than other sports teams I have participated in.  There is so much support from other skaters through local and international roller derby networks - it can be amazing to see the ways that the community pulls together.  For instance, last year one of my teammates was killed - there are still no answers about what happened or who killed her.  When this happened, the team really pulled together to help each other and other teams offered support in many different ways.

As for empowerment, there are several organizations set up helping victims of sexual assault or domestic violence get equipment and join a roller derby team.  Anecdotally, I have skated with women who have talked about how transformational roller derby has been to how they see themselves, their feelings of self-worth and leaving abusive partners. I was worried that playing a contact sport would trigger me at times with regards to violent situations and partners that I have had in the past, but I think it has largely done the opposite.  It has made me feel stronger and less anxious and afraid.  It has pushed me mentally, physically, and socially, and given me a support network to help get through it.  We also skate together at the local Take Back the Night.  Other teams take an active role in local sexual assault and harassment awareness and prevention in their communities.

I would be lying if I said that it was always positive and empowering - there were times when interpersonal conflict made it tough to continue - I have seen people leave the sport for this reason. I have heard people refer back to the commonsense assumption that if you get 30 women together, of course there will be conflict.  But I have also seen many women move past this and support each other in really fantastic ways that must be part of what feminists were talking about when they bring up the notion of sisterhood.

Roller derby is also one of the most body-positive sports that I have ever been part of.  In my experience with the game, I have never seen anyone be put down because of their weight.  I will admit that at first I had ideas about what fat bodies were capable of when it came to athletics, but my experience playing the game has completely changed the way that I look at bodies - my own and others.  In roller derby, there seems to be a role for all body types, and it isn't as simple as smaller bodies are good at jamming and larger bodies are good at blocking.  I now realize that size is not necessarily indicative of health, stamina, strength or ability to play the game.  It has also made me much more concerned about what my body can do instead of what my body looks like.  Since joining roller derby, the numbers on the scale and my pant size have both increased and I don't care - I don't care because the distance I can run and the number of squats and push ups I can do and weight I can lift has also increased.  I feel stronger.  And even though I know that strong bodies can also be objectified, I feel like this shift from caring about my weight (but trying not to) is a very feminist thing.  I also need to point out that I am very lucky to be able-bodied in this respect - I don't think there is a version of roller derby yet for people who cannot skate.


Language

One issue that I am having trouble getting past is with respect to language.  Roller derby players are often referred to as "girls" in team names and in conversation.  We are derby girls - not derby players or women.  New skaters are referred to as Fresh Meat. I believe this refers more to some kind of tenderizing process than anything else, but it is hard for me to use the word "meat" for women and not think of blatant objectification.  Many derby names are also blatantly sexual - sometimes team names, sometimes player names.  This part can be more difficult for me to try and move past in my own head, and can be easier to accept a team name that is at least actively sexual (get'n lucky charms) than passive or naming body parts or names that sound violent or use words that I find offensive.  I totally get that it is meant to be tongue and cheek and even empowering in many cases, but I am not able to entirely see it that way.  Sometimes the names are feminist and inspiring, and it really helps me to focus on these parts of the sport.  Again, feminism is full of contradictions, and I think that roller derby has a lot of those, with moments of clear feminism, moments that are almost impossible to frame as feminist, and moments where it is both and neither at the same time.



Roller derby is made up of a variety of women, and is only as queer or feminist as the people who are playing the sport.  Some teams have amazing social justice committees and engage the community and each other in amazing ways.  Other teams play into the sexuality of their players, sometimes in cheeky ways, sometimes in overtly objectifying ways.  So, my answer is that there is nothing inherently feminist or queer about the sport itself, but that being organized by women for women and outside of the focus on profit that is seen in so many other sports, it opens a space where feminism and queerness can fit quite nicely.  Thus, the sport has more potential to be feminist and queer than so many others, and that is often how it is taken up by teams and skaters.

Also, it is incredibly fun to play, and I highly recommend seeing if your local league (if you are lucky enough to have one) will let you borrow some gear so you can come see what it is all about - you may find yourself coming back every week for more!

Taking back take back the night

Sudbury's Take Back the Night took place on Thursday evening and it was one of the least empowering feminist events I have ever attended. 

A few months ago, I was asked to speak at the event.  I started receiving committee emails at this time and noted that there were police officers on the organizing committee.  Every person on this committee was there as part of their job representing various organizations.

One email included a draft of the new "parade purpose" which was changed in order to fit with the police's new community mobilization model.   Yes, you read that correctly.  They changed the written purpose of TBTN to get a parade permit.

When I suggested that we could march without the police which could be more empowering because so many victims of violence are revictimized by police services, I was removed from the speakers list because we are not allowed to subject "guilt on another because of their profession."

A group of wonderful (and angry! ) feminists pulled together to get me back on the speakers list.  Then we attended the event.

I think I was the only speaker who even said the words "queer" "trans" or implied that things like skin colour or disabilities can impact experiences of violence (there was an indigenous speaker who had a lot to say about intergenerational violence so they at least had that covered). Half the speakers used the phrase "not all men" because they wanted to make sure the men present were comfortable.  But you know where men are already comfortable? everywhere.  That is kind of the point of the event.

When my speech was over, the next speaker was a (white male) police officer.  This officer has arrested several of the women in the room at various times including sex workers and local activists engaged in a peaceful protest.  He also has been known to displace homeless women.  And he had been invited to speak by the committee!

He actually said that since the beginning of time, humans have been violent (not true, but if it were, why would we bother trying to end violence at all). Then he differentiated between wars and hurtful violence, making it sound like violence used to be productive when it was to steal indigenous land or stop Hitler but now we are just using it to be mean.  There is good violence and bad violence.  And the nice protective police officer seems happy to decide which is which.  That was just the first of five minutes but the whole thing was pretty terrible.  And not all men are violent, in case us ladies forgot.

When a few radical feminists expressed outrage at him being on stage, they were chastised.  A group of women turned their backs on the officer when he got on stage and another group ran up to block the police officer from having to see them.  Two women went on stage at the open mic to publicly shame the women who expressed discomfort with the police officer's presence because they met him and he's a nice guy.

Other themes included that feminism isn't women> men but women=men, that men can help protect women (from other men, if they feel like it, because that is totally empowering), that not all men are violent, and one queer woman was even asked by a fellow activist not to talk about same sex violence because it takes away from the fact that men are the most common perpetrators.  It was seriously fucked up.

I've read a dozen facebook posts from women who were outraged or left feeling less safe and empowered than when they got there.  This is a huge problem.

So, now to figure out what to do about it... how do we take back take back the night?

Abuse Narratives in young adult dystopian fiction

Since graduating, I have taken to reading a lot of fiction.  I have a bit of an obsession for young adult dystopian fiction and sometimes read a bit of zombie/magic/fantasy and, on occasion, even vampire fiction.  I started to notice some disturbing trends in the literature and made a spreadsheet to confirm these tropes.

In case you aren't familiar with this language, a trope is a common pattern in a story or recognizable attribute in a character that conveys information to the audience. Tropes often perpetuate stereotypes.  For more information on tropes, see tropes vs. women

Currently, there are 71 books on my spreadsheet.  The stats person in me feels the need to say that these are in no way selected randomly; they represent what is available in mostly ebook and audiobook from the two public libraries I can access.  However, I did try to borrow from the top selling books tagged as "young adult" and "dystopian" on Goodreads as a rough guide to indicate that these are largely what youth are reading at the moment.

The most disturbing trend, and the one I am going to discuss in this post, is what seems to happen when a female author writes about a female protagonist (46 of the books in my spreadsheet).  Here is the story that played out more often than not...

1. Girl in mid to late teens gets rescued by a cute but mysterious boy early in the story (even in Hunger Games, although we don't know it until a bit later in the story)

2. Girl is conflicted between two potential dating partners.

3. One of the dating partners is abusive in some way - emotionally or physically, often both (one of the book jackets actually said "he loves her, he wants to kill her")

4. It is deemed to be "not his fault" because ... (he was brainwashed by the capital, he is fighting a transformation into a supernatural being of some sort, he is a supernatural being of some sort and it is in his nature to bite/kill, he was raised in another area where this was how things work and doesn't know any better).

5. Love interest #2 treats her like a human being (88.2% of love triangles or 68% total books)

6. Girl somehow survives everything  (often because of a girl-power awesome piece, but sometimes because one of the two love interests fixes everything for her) 

7. Girl lives happily ever after with abusive asshole, who is now a nice guy

The most disturbing part for me is with respect to #4.  In many real abusive relationships, the abuse is explained away as not the fault of the abusive partner - he is just under a lot of stress right now, he is not acting like himself, etc.

Some of the behavior in these books is scary.  In Twilight, Edward watches Bella sleep by sneaking into her room and everyone is ok with this?!?  If someone snuck into my room to watch me sleep, I would call the police, not date them.  In so many of these books, the love interest tries to kill the protagonist (even in The Hunger Games) and we are all ok with this because it is not his fault.  Sometimes, instead of being physically abusive, love interest #1 is merely hostile, rude, secretive, mean, spiteful, or otherwise an ass not worthy of her time.

I think it is also important that most of these girls kick ass.  It can seem empowering to watch Katniss survive the games twice and take down the capital, often saving Peetah in the process, or watching any other female character use her intelligence and physical strength to take down whatever demon / faerie / vampire / soldier / government / etc is in her way (reminiscent of Buffy), BUT, even though she is a strong and independent character, she is still in an abusive relationship with love interest #1.  Also, thank you Divergent for not doing any of this (not my favorite series, but notable in that the whole love triangle / abuse thing is barely there).

I get that this is fiction and it isn't telling young girls to go date vampires who are going to beat the crap out of them the night they lose their virginity, but when such a high percentage of the relationships that girls are reading about and watching on television excuses abuse, it can definitely lead to a situation where abusive behaviors seem relatively normalized much in the same way that study after study has shown that watching programming that incorporates rape myths make teens and college-aged adults more likely to believe in rape myths.  

Other issues with these books;

Number of books/series with at least one non-white character; 31% 

Number of books/series with at least one LGBT character; 23% (this is artificially high - there were a total of 3 series with LGBT characters;  Revived had a trans character, Adaptation had 3 queer characters including 

main characters, and the Sweep series had at least 5 LGBT characters, so I read 9 of the 14 books, HOWEVER none of these are actually dystopian despite being tagged as such).

Number of books where female protagonist stays single; 0

Number of books where male protagonist stays single;12%

Average number of female characters (non-protagonist) that have any real character development; 1.68 per book

Don't get me wrong - these books are not all bad.  There is also a lot of positive commentary coming from them, which is why I like them and continue to read them.  Most of them provide some kind of insight into the world; ideas of good and evil as shades of grey and not just black and white, issues with censorship, obedience, government/social control, war, better ways to organize socially and politically, what constitutes freedom and choice, is there such a thing as "human nature" and what does it look like, ethical issues with science and genetics, environmental sustainability, beauty ideals, racism, social class, poverty, Indigenous issues, religion, the importance of art, linking militarism to sexual violence against women... I could write several posts on these aspects alone!

In the next few weeks, I would like to write about tropes with other gender groupings for author/protagonist. 

Also, please continue to recommend books and series that you particularly liked!

Why the "friend zone" isn't funny

I love to read memes and visit a lot of sites that have a variety of memes.  However, I am getting sick and tired of all of these comments about the "friend zone."

I'm sure you have heard of this concept - it is when women overlook a perfectly acceptable dating partner and think of them only as a friend, even though this guy wants to be more than friends and has been extra nice to this particular woman to try and win her over.

It is also women's way of exerting power over the male species and to continue having them do our bidding (insert evil laughter)....

Here are a couple of supposedly hilarious examples;

http://www.memecenter.com/fun/112269/Friend-zoned

http://cheezburger.com/7112959744

It even suggests that women use this power intentionally to abuse and manipulate men or just treat them like shit;

http://www.memecenter.com/fun/116685/Friend-Zone-Level-99

But this is incredibly sexist.  It suggests that women owe sex to men who are nice to us.  It is also insulting to men, suggesting that the only reason a straight cisgendered male would be friends with a woman is to get her to sleep with him.

http://ahumanstory.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/the-friend-zone/

http://www.funnyjunk.com/friendzone/funny-pictures/5014434/

This "friend zone" ignores what women actually want in a relationship.  It makes women seem like spoiled brats who drag men around to do their bidding.  It makes men seem like victims because a woman they were nice to does not want to sleep with them, which implies that men are entitled to sex from any woman they would like to have sex with.  It makes it harder for women to say no without being thought of as selfish or manipulative, especially if the guy has been nice to her.  It implies that it is a bad thing to be friends with a woman (if you are a hetero cis man), which I can only assume is because men are so much more interesting than women and the only thing women are good for is sleeping with.

This friend zone can be dangerous.  It reinforces many of the same ways of thinking that supports date rape as an excusable behavior. In the next comic (from a page that explicitly refers to the rape zone), you can see the myth that women will intentionally seek to gain financially from male friends, and that men should be paid back in sexual favors for spending money on a woman.

http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/2309111/im/

 I have seen several images linking this friend zone to sexual assault - I debated whether or not to include these images, but I really don't want to give them any more hits than they already have, but there are a group of memes about putting women in the rape zone if you have been friendzoned and a series of posts entitled the fuck a friendzone movement.  These might be meant as jokes, not actually encouraging men to assault women, but with the prevalence of rape myths and sexual assault, there is nothing funny about them.

So please stop sharing "friend zone" images unless it is to explicitly point out how sexist they really are.

What passes for journalism these days....

So, on the bright side, this article made me want to post again for the first time in over a year (or maybe that has something to do with being back in academia).  On the down side, nobody is going to read this because I haven't blogged in a year...

This article in a local newspaper is one of the worst pieces of journalism I have ever read.  It is about the city's decision to fly the rainbow flag in support of LGBTQ athletes in Russia.

Not only does the article completely fail to contextualize the reason for the rainbow flag flying at city hall, but it presents some incredibly hateful views without refuting them or even suggesting that they might be discriminatory.

A few quotes...

"Raising the rainbow flag at Tom Davies Square will confuse children, one Star poll respondent believes."




I have children.  Neither of whom have ever been confused by a rainbow flag despite multiple exposures to them.

"“It's discrimination against married couples, having something like that,” another said, while a third person agreed."

Ignorance is discrimination against everyone... I win.  Also, note the completely heterosexist assumption that all married couples are straight.

Finally, the stats presented are absolutely absurd -

Of thirty-seven people called in to the poll hotline, 35 were opposed to the flag being flown. On the website 67% said no, 30% said yes and 3% were unsure.

Note that the other 165,000 people who live in this city decided that the rainbow flag is such a non-issue that they don't feel the need to pick up the phone to complain about it!

Seriously though, here is the problem - the average person reads this, shakes their head and moves on.  But people who hold homophobic opinions read this, feel that their opinions are validated and that most people think like they do, and they continue to spread hateful opinions on the internet, in schools, in the workplace, etc etc.