Peformative Feminism

If you have to say, “I am a badass,” then you probably aren’t.

The roller derby community is interesting, if nothing else. I just had coffee with a teammate and we talked about how we missed having derby practice, and how we don’t know if we ever will be able to play again, due to COVID. It’s a full-contact, aggressive sport; social distancing is not part of the game.

We talked about our friends we miss, and skating every week, and how our bearings need cleaning/trashing. (I chose trashing and bought new ones from the skate shop down the street.)

There are some people in modern roller derby who are what I call performative feminists. There are all sorts in derby, to be clear. But we were talking about how neither of us miss hanging out with these particular kind of folks: women who can skate, or want to, and want to hit other women and want to SAY they play roller derby. They enjoy the reaction from their friends at work, who are shocked that they play a full-contact sport. They are focused (very focused) on defense within the game—preventing others from moving forward. They (try to) hit hard and relish it when their contact causes a reaction of some sort.

This is intentional.

They are the kind of people who WANT to be ambitious. They WANT to be high-achievers in their careers. They WANT others to notice them and notice that they are BADASS. This is because, more often than not, they are not ambitious; they are timid. They are not high-achieving in their careers; they are very often subservient to a man at home. They want others to notice them because they don’t get noticed otherwise.

Okay, fine. You get that from roller derby, and good for you. Validation and success and achievement through hard work is great. I will cheer you on.

However.

Please remember that these people more often than not focus on defense—preventing others from moving forward, via attempts at hard hits. They do this in life, as well. They are judgmental of other women, because of their looks or weight or lack of athletic ability. They are catty and gossip and cause drama. They relish a fight and are the ones who will take a video of themselves “owning” the libs because they didn’t wear a mask and nobody can make them, and will you LOOK at what a BADASS they are? These types of players are overwhelmingly Republican and yes, they voted for Trump.

I said what I said.

I’m not looking forward to having to talk to people like this again. I admitted that I kind of like not having to hang out with them. They are performative feminists: they won’t march for Black Lives, they certainly won’t say they Matter because lives mattering is a zero-sum game to them. They won’t vote for women’s interests because they aren’t interested in lifting others up, only holding others back. They are interested in defense, because for their entire lives they are defensive.

Hard hits can be fun, when they connect just right. They are even more fun when they are done in the interest of offense, which moves your team forward. When playing offense, I am CLEARING THE WAY for another woman to get through, and when she does, she lifts up the whole team by scoring points.

Play offense.