Sharing a bench talk recently with a woman about my age, we of course had to go back and recount the old days…back when women were entering the workplace and the sports field without many of the regulations and considerations today.
She shook her head with a wry grin. “You know, it wasn’t easy being us back then.”
Reminds me a bit of something the women in roller derby back in the 60’s and 70’s might say to each other (and maybe they do!)
Ask anyone (except the folks who have been initiated into derby) and you’ll probably hear how he or she watched the spectacle on television as entertainment. Most often it is compared to televised female wrestling of the time.
Yet even back in those olden days women had to be incredible athletes, often competing head to head on the same tracks as the male skaters. Colleen English of Penn State penned a good article on the dilemma of women derby skaters of the 60’s and 70’s — “Women in the Roller Derby: Groundbreaking Athletes or Entertaining Celebrities”
In the article she quotes sportscasters of the day…
“Sportwriter Frank Deford, in Five Strides on the Banked Track, written in 1971, took a slightly nuanced view of women in roller derby.,.. Despite Deford’s somewhat progressive attitude toward the role of women in roller derby—he noted their perpetual inclusion—he still saw them as a potential distraction and as not part of the “real” game. Deford goes as far as to blame women for derby’s reputation as a spectacle, writing that “there is no doubt that it is the women who give the game its tawdry, sideshow image” and that fans may initially come to see the women skaters but “stay to enjoy the faster, harder, men’s play.”
Today derby is considered first an incredibly tough woman’s sport, although the number of men’s and coed teams are growing as well as inclusion of transgender athletes. But the women are setting the rules now as well as the social standards. It’s worth your watch.
Maybe they will be able to say on a bench sometime in the future, “Wasn’t it great being us…”
SKATE ON!
Darla