Women who hate other women

There are a lot of myths about modern-day roller derby: it's staged, there's punching, only women with questionable morals play, it's not that athletic, it's mainly about wearing fishnets, and on and on.

Then there are a lot of half-truths about modern-day roller derby.

When Cho Cold (who was then just Carrie) asked if I'd be interested in playing roller derby, I had never heard of it. I had never heard the words roller and derby together, and I had no reference point even after she explained the basics of the game.

So then I read everything I could about it on news sites, forums, team websites, and absorbed as much information as I could from the girls from Tragic City Rollers, who helped us so much in getting started.

In many ways, my experience has been like that of others, but in other ways, I just cannot understand why people so often glibly repeat what I consider to be a half-truth about the sport we all love so much:

• "When you're on the track, you're a different person. Roller derby lets you be someone else; you need that persona to get out there and do what you have to do."
• "Roller derby is a sport for women who hate other women."
• "Of course there's going to be drama - what do you expect when you have a bunch of women hanging out together."
• "Roller derby is more about being tough than having strategy."
• "Roller derby is the sport for the counter-culture."

While I think each of these sentiments has some truth in it, I can't stand that they are bandied about and often accepted wholesale.

For today: "Roller derby is a sport for women who hate other women."

I've heard that statement countless times from girls who play and others who are involved in roller derby in some way. That has not been my experience at all. To me, it seems that roller derby is a sport for women who often very much would like to form close bonds with other women but, for various reasons, may not have as adults.

When I was growing up, I often goaded my friends into doing daring and foolish things. Most of my close girlfriends were not thrilled about jumping out of trees onto dirty, rocky slopes or riding double on a bike on a steep and windy patch of pavement or hitting each other with thistles. (But some of them were.) Equally, I wasn't thrilled about trying on makeup or going shopping or doing other things that are generally the domain of little girls. But we were still close.

In college, I was lucky enough to meet a girl who will always, always hold a precious piece of my heart. And we were certainly unlike most of the girls around us - "demolition derby" sledding, climbing things, rollerblading constantly, and later routinely tackling each other on the rugby field - instead of wholeheartedly embracing the more common college pastimes of tanning, dressing up to go to the gym, and whatever else it is college girls do. (I'm not putting those things down - it's just different interests.)

And since then, I've wanted so badly to meet other girls like me - not women who hate other women - but women who want to meet people with their interests who are not male. Roller derby is that place.

I'd say roller derby is a sport for women who love to push themselves and their friends to do things that are slightly reckless and who want to just be themselves in one aspect of their lives. Roller derby is a sport for women who want the freedom of acting in a way that is sometimes seen as unfeminine (hitting people, being sweaty, playing a serious sport as an adult) while sharing those experiences with other women who understand that need for freedom.

Roller derby is a sport for women who may dearly love their "more traditional" female friends but also sometimes need friendships with people who understand their reckless, intense, not-always-logical sides.