And maybe that's feminist in a way?: Feminisms and Feminist Identity in Women's Flat Track Roller Derby Revival

Abstract

Through the last twenty years, feminist theory has fragmented into modern "feminisms" with diverse and sometimes contrary ideas about sexuality, empowerment, and activism in larger cultural contexts. This study explores contentions within modern feminisms by examining how roller derby participants use derby culture to negotiate early 21st century feminism. I contextualize feminist identity and sport by detailing how sports culture has been historically and culturally understood as a masculine project, and how women have been excluded from this project. By analyzing 219 newspaper and magazine articles, interviewing eleven roller derby participants, and observing fifty hours of practices, I identify three elements of roller derby culture as "strategies of action" that constitute what other scholars have called a feminist culture. I contend, however, that these strategies are used to distance skaters' experiences from second-wave feminism through a nebulous empowerment strategy employing narratives of violence, the derby alter-ego, and heterosexualization.