Body Image
Body image issues are extremely common, especially with young girls and women, although they are not necessarily exclusive to them. T Young girls are inundated by images of impossibly tiny bodies selling products that are often completely unrelated, but the images stick.
Rousey was no stranger to this herself. Prior to her entry into UFC, the champion was dealing with anorexia, and spoke of this in news.
“It feels liberating to free of the guilt that used to come with every meal. And I feel like I have so much extra space in my brain now that I’m not constantly thinking about the next meal and trying to eat as much as possible every day while still losing weight,”
she says.
Public Sexism
Rousey has faced sexist diatribe from a few colleagues and several armchair critics over the media and internet. Most famously, Floyd Mayweather, when asked about Rousey following her recent victory over Bethe Correia, was asked about the women’s bantamweight champion in an interview. He responded with “I don’t know who she is,” following this up weeks later asking Rousey to “make real money” before he spoke to her.
Ronda Rousey, however, did not take this lying down. She won the ESPY Sportsperson of the Year award this year, beating Mayweather to the prize. In rejoinder, she asked Mayweather how it felt to “be beaten by a woman for once.”
Voice Of Women
Rousey speaks repeatedly of the importance of independence, of how women should not be ‘do-nothings’ and ‘take care of themselves’. In a world where pictures, film and media rhetoric constantly give women the idea that they must ‘be’ a certain way in order to be ‘liked’, she gives them the all-important message that the most important thing in the world is to be oneself – for nobody else, a message that will go a long way in helping women world-over build a self-belief they may not have previously had.
Check out this inspiring video below as well,
What do you think about her story? Let us know in the comments below. Also, do share your source of inspiration and we’ll surely check it out.
