enakblog: Confessions Of A Flawed Role Model

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Confessions Of A Flawed Role Model

I remember being a teen-ager and getting yelled at for something, and my dad bringing a new element into his usual ranting and raving.

I didn't hear most of it, but the last part was: And I don't like your role models!

I was usually afraid of my father, but this time I looked him right in the eye and said:

I don't have any role models.

Sad, but true. Up to that point, there was no one in particular I wanted to emulate.

And I think it contributed a lot to how much of an outsider I felt like all the time. As far as I knew, there was nobody like me in the world.

I think a lot of women my age felt that way in our younger years.

I've done a lot of polling, both online and in person, asking women in roller derby who they mostly hung with before derby.

And it would appear that A LOT of us hung out mostly with guys!

That's a subject I'll be revisiting later, but interesting, isn't it?

Did you notice that, in school, there was "History," a required class. And "Women in History" was just a tinysmall part of it?

Or that women in public positions now-a-days are either wearing pant suits or glitter with their yay-hoos showing?

I get that many women can relate to that. But I, personally, don't.

Not even close.

When Derby Dolls came into my life (2003), and founder Demolcious told us we were going to make this a professional sport, I believed her.

Check out what this pic is from:http://laist.com/2010/05/21/demolicoius_pioneer_woman.php

And it was when I became the founder of LA's sister league that I made the shift from:

I am utterly, selfishly, in love with roller derby

To:

I do this to create good role models for young girls in a society that is lacking

What is a role model, though? I mean, I know what Wikipedia says it means:

The term role model generally means any "person who serves as an example, whose behavior is emulated by others".^[1]

But what does it mean to me? What should it mean?

It's something I think about a lot, lately.

no respectable blog would include this....

I always meant to be part of the big picture, getting the sport on TV. As a sport.

That way young girls who feel like I did can have some women to look at and say, "Oh, they're like me. There's something positive I can look up to."

But you know, they would say it in a cooler, less cheesy way.

And that really motivated me to become the woman that I am today. A better version of myself, and a constant work-in-progress.

But, I don't know that I ever realized anyone would actually to look up to me, personally.

I'm grateful that I can be in a position to inspire, where I can.

But that also feels like a lot of pressure! I mean... sometimes it feels like perfection is what people are looking for.

Allow me to burst that bubble right now.

I'm not bragging, but I'm going to be honest: I've been a closet-smoker since I was 15 years old.

And I'm not glorifying that, by any means.

You're unlikely to find a picture of me smoking, I don't do it front of large crowds and I never smoke in front of children.

But that doesn't mean I'm ashamed of it either. I just choose to keep aspects of my life private. At least, until it's time blog about them.

I only mention it to bring about a point: we're all walking contradictions in one way or another.

And to embrace that is human. Only when you deny it are you a hypocrite.

We've all got our quirks. And honestly-unashamed-humanly-walking-contradictions need role models, too.

So, in my role of facilitating getting more role models in mainstream for more young girls to have access to seeing... I finally know what that means.

It means bringing whole teams of athletes to the forefront: and there's one for everyone out there to relate to, no matter what their quirks are.