“I love that younger girls will look at her and want to grow up to be total badasses.” My girlfriend didn’t like that idea when I shared it. “I don’t want my daughter to grow up wanting to be a fighter,” she said before unleashing a list of successful women and accomplishments made on the road toward equal rights between men and women, all long before Ronda Rousey had become the world’s greatest athlete. And of course my better half had a valid point. A woman is running for President of the United States, for example. That’s a much bigger step toward the world we want to live in than celebrating how fast Rousey knocked out her latest opponent. And naturally, I’d much prefer to raise a daughter who comes running to me one day proclaiming she wants to grow up to win more World Titles than Carissa Moore. That will be a great day, and the more I think of the possibility, the more parallels I start to draw and dissect between the 135-pound fighter’s rise to super stardom in a growing global (brutal) sport and surfing.
So what would Ronda Rousey be like if she were a professional surfer, and not a fighter? What would the surf world look like with her personality dominating every single headline? What if her heats became not just appointment television all over the world, but we talked about them for months on end between swells? Hell, what would the world at large look like if its most dominant modern athlete was in something that didn’t involve breaking arms and bruising faces? Carissa Moore, for example, regularly gets the “surfs like a guy” faux compliment. She also has faced her fair share of body shaming from the public, which is something she addressed in a recent short film produced for ESPNw. Moore admitted to letting the opinions of others influence her confidence and even her relationship with food. But ultimately she stands by the idea that her body serves a purpose. It’s built for a beautifully stylish surfer. And ultimately, that’s how she’s learned to appreciate herself and love her body.
And Rousey has the same sentiments for the people who criticize her for having a “masculine” body. Only she articulates those feelings on brand with the “Rowdy” nickname she carries. Her “do nothing bitches” philosophy is the exact same perspective as Carissa’s.
It’s the exact same message to the future children of mine/yours/ours, only Rousey’s version went completely viral much like everything else that comes out of her mouth. She’s called out Floyd Mayweather (the former best fighter on the planet) for being a serial abuser of women on a television broadcast that reached 7.7 million Americans (on the same night she was dubbed the best fighter on the planet, ironically). She has sex appeal that’s owed to her persona as a strong woman more than “oh yeah she’s pretty too.” And she owns all of it. It’s impossible to ignore and hard not to love. So for all these reasons and many, many more, Ronda Rousey has earned a voice that transcends her sport. Even when that voice carries a message shared with an equally impressive athlete, it’s the Bantamweight Champ’s version that the world at large listens to.
So why should we care? Surfers don’t want surfing to get the same attention mixed martial arts is now getting, right? I can hear the “more waves for me” responses being typed right now. But, I’m not arguing that Ronda Rousey’s fame is a commodity that should bring value to whatever sport she competes in. I’m still stuck on wanting my future daughter to grow up with aspirations of Rousey-esque badassery. And you should be too. “I want to encourage them to not be afraid to get in a lineup that has all guys,” as Moore puts it. In Rousey’s words, “I don’t want every girl to be a fighter, but every girl can see that if something is perceived as a guy’s thing that doesn’t mean it’s not for them.” Now, you think that a few more young women in generations to come would be a little more open to getting into those lineups if they had a Ronda Rousey piping off the same message?
I love that the most popular athlete on the planet is a woman. I love that the most dominant athlete in any sport happens to be an attractive woman who’s literally kicking ass in something we’d only expect men to compete in. And I love that she’s a completely unapologetic badass about it all. In short, I love Ronda Rousey (she’s well aware of this already). Granted, Rousey doesn’t like to think of herself as a role model but she does represent a lot of things the surf world, and other sports with room to grow, could use. I’m still thinking of all the generations behind us that won’t find it so out of the ordinary when a woman becomes more successful and popular in a sport dominated by men (now are we getting the surf parallels here?). But most of all I’m excited that someday I’ll have a daughter, or my friends will have a daughter, that will run up to me excited about not just wanting to win more World Titles than Carissa Moore. No, she’ll be talking about how she beat Kelly Slater’s son in a heat. And none of us will think twice about making that “surfs like a guy” remark. Like Carissa (and Ronda) reminds us – if you rip, you rip.
