By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 9 years ago

Quote of the Day: “My past is littered with the bones of men…”

roberts 2She said she was all too aware that if she was selected, she would represent several hundred male athletes in the N.B.A.; she would deal with league officials and agents who were nearly all men; she would negotiate with team owners who were almost all men; and she would stand before reporters who were predominantly men.

She did not flinch.  “My past,” she told the room, “is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.”

Meet the new head of the NBA players union, Michele A. Roberts. A former public defender, Roberts will be the first female leader of a major North American professional sports union. But, she says, “I don’t live my life saying, ‘What ceiling am I going to crack tomorrow?'” Instead, her advice “is not to worry about whether you’re the only one, but worry about whether you’re the best one.”

As The Toast suggests, let us bow down before her.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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