Hey Strangekittens. No doubt you’re glad the Olympics is over. But for me, it’s not because of the sports coverage. I actually like sports! It was the unfair coverage of female athletes that got my attention.
These women work fucking HARD to get to Olympic level. They are skilled, strong, healthy, ambitious and smart.
They are gold, silver and bronze medallists. They are our sisters, mothers, friends, team-mates and best friends.
They are simply, the best of their country’s sporting communities, and had to achieve the highest to get there.
So why are we treating them like pieces of meat? Check out this post by British Olympic weight lifter Zoe Pablo Smith on why she doesn’t care about the silly hater remarks about her appearance.
As you can see, she’s obviously used to being called some pretty nasty things. Good on her for telling them to go jump off a cliff. And she raises an excellent point: The kinds of people that say these silly things are weak, insecure individuals.
People whose opinions quite simply, don’t matter to her.
And there lies my own point: You can get to the highest reaches of whatever you’re achieving. You could be the paragon of kindness, like the Dalai Lama.
Still, people would hate on you. Why? it’s not your fault. It’s theirs, and it’s their own insecurities that drive them to drag you down.
It takes strength to get out there, climb that ladder to the top an achieve. It takes work, and some people aren’t willing to take that step out of fear of failure. So, they drag down people that weren’t as afraid to take a step forward.
As a woman, even though some things are skewed unfavourably to me, i’d prefer to take a step forward, rather than act the victim. Will you do the same?
-Dannielle
Special thanks to Zoe Smith for inspiring this article with her amazing blog post.
I'm a published photographer, blogger, designer and amateur Paleo chef. I'm also maybe a crazy cat lady.
