If you don’t know her yet, you certainly know someone talking about her. She goes by “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey. She serves as the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) reigning bantamweight champion and a powerful role model for girls and women everywhere.
Rousey’s undefeated record and incredibly quick fights bring her to spotlight as a ferocious athlete. In fact, she has also won a bronze medal in judo at the 2008 Summer Olympics. This writer stumbled upon her while scrolling through Facebook where she was selling T-shirts with the proceeds going to mental health and those struggling with eating disorders. After reading all about her and her amazing drive to inspire stronger women, I immediately purchased two. Both have the “Don’t be a DNB” image printed on them. Rousey states in an interview that a “DNB” is a woman who expects things to be done for her and have a man’s millions of dollars at her disposal. She says she’s anything but that type of girl and hopes others will follow her lead!
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Beyonce also used Rousey’s empowering body image speech to open her set at the “Made In America” festival in Philadelphia That same speech has empowered athletically built women everywhere to embrace their stronger figures. Rousey even went as far to call out Floyd Mayweather (a boxer known for domestic violence) at the ESPY Awards this past year. She has also given time to many martial arts schools in Brazil, where mixed martial arts fighting is immensely popular, to teach judo clinics to young girls.
Rousey’s mother was the first American woman to win a world championship in judo (also while pursuing a Ph.D in engineering, WOW!) and her older sister works as a journalist. Co-authoring with her sister, Ronda shares her life story and struggles in her book, My Fight, Your Fight. The book itself is a New York Times Bestseller and is currently being considered for movie production. As if that wasn’t enough, Rousey has also been called on for roles in major action films, including “Furious 7” and “The Expendables 3.”
Rousey’s realism and pure fierceness has inspired so many, so quickly and brought light to issues the public tends to ignore. As young women, we could use a voice behind body positivity and someone who understands the impact of mental health on our lives. Ronda brings that to the UFC (and the world!) with every fight. Her hand wraps often have quotes on them to remind her why she’s fighting. In her past fight with Bethe Corriea, her wraps paid tribute to her late father, whom she lost to suicide.
While Taylor Swift defines our lives through song, we should let Ronda Rousey armbar the stigma of mental illness and eating disorders while continuing her path to becoming the most dominate female athlete in all of sports.