You may have recently seen a rather disturbing photo floating around the internet (surprising, right?), specifically within the CrossFit community. The photo was posted by 3 times CrossFit Games competitor Emily Abbott.
If you weren’t aware, making it to The CrossFit Games is not an easy task, let alone qualifying to go three times and placing 8th out of over 30 competitors during one of your trips to determine the “Fittest Man/Woman on Earth”. It is both a mental and physical task, and takes an unbelievable amount of determination, dedication, and hard work to get there. Not only are these athletes spending hours upon hours in the gym, they are also making sure their diet is near perfection and their bodies are well recovered to do it all over again the next day. Again, this takes discipline and diligence.
So it sounds like for one to make it to these games they must have a pretty good amount of talent, right? Absolutely. Abbott can clean and jerk 240 pounds, snatch 190 pounds, and perform a multitude of high level gymnastic skills, just to name only a few of her accomplishments. But not only is she crazy talented in the gym – by the looks of her Instagram, she also seems like just a really freaking cool person.
Now let’s talk about Dave. Dave is a dude no one really knows, at all. Dave’s just another guy on one of those dating apps, probably looking to try and find true love, or something.
Dave was lucky enough to get matched with Abbott on said dating app. Instead of realizing he just got matched with a woman who has a million and one amazing qualities, characteristics, and talents – Dave decided to take one look at Abbott’s muscles and decided they scared him a little bit, so he sent her this nice little message…
It’s time we stop being like Dave. It’s time to stop shaming women for being muscular and having an athletic physique because honestly, it’s 2017 and that just doesn’t make sense anymore.
It’s time to stop judging people, women and men, after taking one look at their body. People are too smart, too funny, too hardworking, and too kind, to be judged only by the way they look.
A woman who can lift an insane amount of weight and preform a handful of other high level athletic skills should not be looked down on because she has bigger muscles that might (unfortunately) make some people feel uncomfortable. She should be admired for her hard work and seen as an inspiration for all of the dedication she has put into her sport. Your strength and muscles don’t make you not feminine, they make you badass as hell.
Encourage the women in your life to keep getting stronger. Encourage them to show off their muscles they worked so hard for with pride. Most of all, encourage them to not let people like Dave get them down, but instead let them be motivation for the next time they’re in the gym lifting probably way more than what Dave ever could.