One of my motivations for freelancing was to have less of a binary division between work and pleasure. I wanted to be able to integrate the things I do for fun into my working life, and to be able to work on projects I genuinely love. This was realised in a delightful - if slightly left-field way this week, as I'm featured in Stylist Magazine (pleasingly - under their 'strong women' feature), talking about roller derby. It was fun to chat with them about how the skills I've learned as a member of New Town Roller Derby translate into my attitude to work and life.
The Stylist article is paywalled, but is copied below for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!
How to embrace being competitive: 4 successful women on why competitiveness is their best characteristic
By Miranda Larbi and Alex Sims, originally published on Stylist.com (paywalled)
Women are often demonised for being competitive, but having that need to succeed is the driving force behind successful Olympians, politicians and entrepreneurs. So, why do we try to stamp out something so beneficial? We’ve been talking to three women who’ve embraced their competitive side and used it to forge incredible careers, take on new hobbies and build resilience.
In a few days time, Team GB’s athletes will be taking to the shiny new Olympic stadiums in Paris to throw javelins, dive half pikes and vault over pommel horses. And the common factor uniting them all? Competitiveness. An inner drive to “win or be more successful than other people” (per the Cambridge Dictionary), competitiveness is one of the key traits you need if you want to devote your life to sport – and succeed.
But, how would you feel if someone described you as competitive? In everyday life, it’s an adjective that can sit awkwardly – especially for women. A huge amount of research has been devoted to female competitiveness, both in patronising and informative ways. For years, studies have deemed women to be less competitive than men. Yet, despite this, female rivalry is picked apart and analysed. In the public eye, the workplace and in friendship groups, women are accused of comparing and sabotaging one another (hello, Mean Girls), while openly competitive women have been criticised. Just look at the way Serena Williams – one of the most successful female tennis players in history – was caricatured and demonised.
So where have we gone wrong? Good old sexism aside, a 2021 study suggested that perhaps society has simply misunderstood women when it comes to motivation. Researchers tasked over 200 participants – split evenly by gender – to enter competitions to win money, and found that women entered the competitions at the same rate as men but were more inclined to compete when they had the option to share their winnings with the losers. That suggests that female competitiveness is a whole lot more nuanced, complex and helpful than we give it credit for.
To find out more about the ways in which being competitive enriches women’s lives, we’ve been chatting to three women on why it could just be their best characteristic.
“Don’t apologise – it’s what you’re supposed to be doing”
Kathryn Welch, 39, member of New Town Roller Derby
New Town Roller Derby: photo credit Jan Hutter
“I fell into roller derby after meeting someone from New Town at a local Pride march. I went along for a tryout last October and found the team to be the most friendly, welcoming and generous bunch of people, but they are also incredibly competitive – they really want to win.
“I hadn’t been on roller skates since I was a child, so I started from the absolute beginning. I had to learn how to stand up on skates and then learn the physical side of roller derby, because it’s a full-contact sport. That’s part of its competitive nature and it’s been good to experiment with my own toughness. It feels powerful. When I started jamming into the other players, my immediate reaction was to say ‘sorry’, but the team’s response was: ‘You don’t have to apologise for this; it’s what you’re supposed to be doing.’ That aspect of the competition has taught me to be less apologetic in other aspects of my life, especially when I’m doing a job I need to do.
“Being competitive is framed as something where you have to shove people down in order to win, but, being a team sport, roller derby has completely changed my view. Being a team, supporting and looking out for each other is part of the sport and being kind and generous can be part of your competitiveness. These things don’t have to be in opposition.
“It’s also taught me a lot about patience. I have high expectations and put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed, but when you learn something from scratch at 39, you realise that you can’t be brilliant at everything on day one. Sticking with something through the struggle is how you get good and become competitive. I’ve learned that part of competitiveness is having patience with yourself. It takes a while to learn something new and you can struggle with it. But, that’s not failing, that’s how you win.”