Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Nyad Completes Historic Swim!

I've written about one of her previous attempts before, but on Monday Diana Nyad became the first person to swim the 110 miles between Cuba and Key West without a shark cage.  Nyad is 64 years old.

Congratulations to her, and her team of supporters, on the remarkable accomplishment!

You know, I've read a few articles about this story and I've noted the way many commenters following the story, men especially, minimizing and undercutting Nyad's achievement.

People were calling her a "he-she," commenting that there are "more important things" the news media should be focusing on, saying that she was selfish for trying, and were ridiculing her because it took her 5 tries to accomplish her feat (although, I'm not sure what that says about everyone else in the entire world, as we haven't ever accomplished that).

How sad for these negative commenters and how truly typical when a female athlete gets any sort of positive press coverage - question her femininity, trivialize her sport as not being a real sport worthy of coverage, attack her, and suggest that a man could have done it better.

Rather than being happy for someone else achieving a major goal and setting a record, some people feel so incredibly insecure about what Nyad's achievement, and the public celebration of it, represents to purported male supremacy.

Assholes.


Related:

Lady Bicycle Faces
Baseball Team Forfeits, Rather Than Compete Against Girl
Weightlifting While Female
Ladies, You Too Can Work Out!
UConn Women BReak Record, Man Not Impressed

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