I clearly remember the second time I tried on roller skates because I still have scars.
The scars aren’t emotional – it’s not like anything awful happened. But thanks to some rocks on the pavement that day will be forever etched in my memory and on my knees.
This is a guest post on women's roller derby by Cynthia Shulak. Her details are at the end of the post. Enjoy!
It was 2001, summer was just around the corner and we were in Saint Henri. A friend of mine had just ordered a pair of skates off Ebay and we were taking turns being Roller Girl (of Boogie Nights fame…yes I know) and trying to skate down her block. I took one step and failed. I got up, tried again, and failed. Over and over again, I failed. I didn’t have an ounce of Roller Girl in me.
So eight years later, as I was in mid-production of a documentary about roller derby and female empowerment, I thought about how I’d failed to skate on that fateful day in May of ’01. I thought about roller derby bouts and shuttered at the thought of being pushed around on wheels. When I found myself at a local Toronto Roller Derby (ToRD) practice and my subjects coaxed me to take off my sneakers and try a pair of skates on, I thought about my scarred knees and how I didn’t want to get bruised up again.
But then again, I never had anyone like a real roller girl to look up to.
Play On, Playette
It’s a well-known fact that participating in sports is good for the mind, body and soul. Roller derby, like most team sports, has strict rules and regulations – jammers weave in and out of packs on the track in order to score points, blockers and pivots help them along by ensuring they make it through opposing packs using “legal” means, meaning almost everything from the hip up is considered fair game for blocking purposes. What sends players to the penalty box? Throwing elbows, head-butts, grabbing and fighting.
"I’m a nice polite person and [my derby persona’s] not nice [nor] polite. All [she] wants is to win and she’ll knock you down and if the ref’s not looking, she’ll elbow you in the face."
This is not to say that the entertainment factor inherent in the televised roller derby bouts of the 70’s and 80’s no longer exists. In present-day derby world, and certainly within the ToRD league, we’re presented with a different kind of spectacle, this time through derby personas, costumes & a play on what femininity means.
ToRD, which boasts itself as the largest flat-track derby roller derby league in North America, is home to teams like the Chicks Ahoy!, Gore-Gore Girls and the Bay Street Bruisers. The teams themselves are home to derby girls with names like Tara Part, Junkie Jenny, and Sue Saint Marie. Players generally embody these characters through costume and at bouts and events in order to separate derby life from their day jobs. Sound a bit like Fight Club? One Gorie I spoke to put it this way:
“I’m a nice polite person and [my derby persona’s] not nice [nor] polite. All [she] wants is to win and she’ll knock you down and if the ref’s not looking, she’ll elbow you in the face. If you don’t create a distinction between your regular everyday life […] I’m not gonna say it would bleed into your life but it’s hard to do those things if you’re not being somebody else. We are a real sport, even though we wear costumes and have fake names and personas and the whole thing. […] We hit really, really hard!”
And believe me, they do.
So what is it about leading a double-life full of hard hits and costumes that draws more and more women towards a league like ToRD? If it’s not clear yet, let me be frank: it’s incredibly empowering for both fans and players alike.
It may come as a surprise to people that, while many roller derby fans are consenting adults, the number of kids who can spout off league stats and the names of their favorite jammers is growing. These are the pre-teen and teenage girls anxiously awaiting their 19th birthday (rules, people!) so that they, too, may join the ranks of ToRD’s finest. They’re learning to stand up for themselves and that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. They’re watching girls who aren’t afraid of some healthy competition and learning that play is play and Mean Girls-esque girl-on-girl hatred isn’t tolerable.
Roller derby, with it’s racy outfits and general bad-girl attitude, gives grown women the opportunity to play hard and challenge themselves, both mentally and physically. It shifts the way we understand gender roles through characterization, role-playing and the sheer physicality of the sport itself. At once, it embraces a kind of hypersexual femininity through play while subverting it by the same means. It’s players range in size, ability, race and age and show the world that there’s no standard roller girl mold; instead, it’s customized and made to fit.
So what does this all mean? This feminist thinks that empowerment is officially found in something tangible, where “play” can take on different meanings and remain important regardless of how you understand it.
Own those scars ladies, and keep playing around. Visit the official ToRD website, follow the league on Twitter, join their Facebook page, and their MySpace page.
Cynthia Shulak hates writing about herself in the third person, but finds it awkward not to do so in short bio statements. She’s currently based in Toronto and working towards an MFA in Documentary Media at Rye High. Her interests include digital media, urban culture, lolcats & meteors. She’s not kidding.
Photography ©Ryan Couldrey