Fight Like a Girl

Fight Like A Girl

As a snap-bracelet-flaunting, Lisa-Frank-flashing, snack-pack-bartering elementary school girl, there was nothing so terribly insulting as overhearing “You throw like a girl!” in the P.E. dodge ball arena.

In subsequent classes, you’d daydream your predestined victory on the playground court, anticipating the humiliation of the boys as you “threw like a girl” until all were doubled over by the sting of that red rubber ball. Then, then they would learn not to pick a girl last when making teams.

After school, you’d join the brother and Pops for catch in the backyard, making considerable efforts to be sure you could pass for one of the guys with your baseball hurling finesse.

At summer camp, you’d go all out in pickup soccer games, trying to prove to the boys that you weren’t like other girls—you were strong, you were brave, and you weren’t afraid of anything, especially not the boys.

Then, somewhere along the line, your lion heart was shaken. You started studying Seventeen magazines, ashamedly asking your mom to drop you off at American Eagle, counting the calories in your PB&J and goldfish and tossing those out for soffe shorts and boy gossip. Suddenly, you shied away from the pickup soccer games, leaving the rough stuff for the boys’ club.

Well Notre Dame ladies, I’m shouting a call to arms to the strong women on this campus! I’m calling the bluff on the timid, the tame, the subdued.

So many women’s health and fitness articles today reiterate and perpetuate “fitness the easy way,” low impact workouts, and shying away from the weights so as to maintain a delicate figure.

The men’s health arena, on the other hand, clamors on and on about strength training, sustaining the male archetype of muscle and might (not that we women necessarily mind this). What I do mind, however, is the exclusiveness of the strength game.

The truth is, women are so much stronger than we give ourselves credit, and there is no shame in flexing that strength! Women are NOT just the pretty little accessory to the statue of a man.

In the words of the wonderwomen of the day, women “run the world,” we are the “girls on fire,” but “just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die, you’ve gotta get up and try and try and try.”

This means exercising your lion heart in the way that makes sense to you. What makes you feel strong?

For me personally, running is the answer. The mile is my rival in the ring, and I love her. Every day, it’s me and that mile, and it’s a challenge and a fight. After four or five rounds though, I always win, because I pound my steps against every voice that tells me the gym is no place for a girl and because I fight the track with my heart of a woman.

As a nascent twenty-something, now is the time to find your own rival in the ring, whether it be your reflection in the mirror in a kickboxing class, the wooden floor below your ballet shoes, the kettle bell weighted in the “boy’s only” corner of the gym, or the soccer ball patiently waiting for its glory shot, your glory shot.

In the words of romantic, transcendentalist icon Christopher McCandless, “I read somewhere how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong.” Well ladies, I already know we ARE strong. We just have to allow ourselves to truly feel that tenacity in our muscles and bones, to really work and sweat and push ourselves to our physical limits to realize our potentials that lie in the strength unique to a woman’s heart.

Girls, I dare you to dare yourself in the gym, on the court, around the track. Work it in spite of doubt and negativity. Challenge those voices that tell you to tone it down.

And watch out boys, it’s a woman’s world.