Ronda Rousey Isn’t a “Do-Nothing Bitch”
Warning: Video contains explicit language.
Many have called strong the new sexy, but none have proved this — or fought for its acceptance — more than Ronda Rousey. The current Ultimate Fighting Championship’s women’s bantamweight title holder opened up about her figure and body shamers in a recent video posted to the UFC’s YouTube channel. (Warning: some NSFW language is used to make her point.)
Rousey lives by the code that her mother instilled her to not be a “do-nothing bitch,“ or a “DNB” for short, as she says she sometimes calls it. Definition (straight from the Rousey dictionary): A DNB is the "kind of chick that just tries to be pretty and be taken care of by somebody else.”
And she’s definitely not that. “I’m just like, listen, just because my body was developed for a purpose other than f**king millionaires doesn’t mean it’s masculine. I think it’s femininely badass as f**k. Because there’s not a single muscle on my body that isn’t for a purpose. Because I’m not a do-nothing bitch,“ she said. "That’s why I think it’s hilarious when people say my body looks masculine or something like that,”
Rousey also recently elucidated this perspective in a widely-shared interview with Cosmopolitian, in which she explained her reasoning for purposefully gaining weight and getting out of her best fighting shape before posing naked in the 2015 Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. “I felt like I was much too small for a magazine that is supposed to be celebrating the epitome of a woman. I wanted to be at my most feminine shape, and I don’t feel my most attractive at 135 pounds, which is the weight I fight at,” she said. “At 150 pounds, I feel like I’m at my healthiest and my strongest and my most beautiful.”
These comments come in the wake of Serena Williams, arguably one of the greatest athletes regardless — male or female — being the subject of criticism for her bulky build in the New York Times. Following her win at Wimbledon in July, Ben Rothenberg wrote that the tennis champion “has large biceps and a mold-breaking muscular frame, which packs the power and athleticism that have dominated women’s tennis for years.” He added that while her competitors could try to emulate her physique, most of them choose not to because of “body-image issues among female tennis players.” Williams has responded quietly but packing a big punch by letting her femininity speak for itself and hashtagging her Instagrams with #strongisbeautiful.
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