Now, I am admittedly NOT a UFC fan. I’m not anti-UFC, but the only fights I have ever watched were my sister’s in person. So it’s possible I am missing something. (Actually, I’m being rhetorical there because the real point of this post is to call bullshit, not to be “enlightened” by the people of the Internet.)
While I am not a UFC follower, I do have Twitter and access to the above-mentioned Internet, so it did not go without my notice that Jon Jones had failed a drug test for the third – THIRD – are you f-ing kidding me?! third time.
The emphasis there is anger italics, not shock. There’s a line in our international bestseller “My Fight/Your Fight” where Ronda says, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I’m a f-ing idiot. And do I look like a f-ing idiot?” If you ever have read the comments on a news story or seen tweets from people with frog emojis in their name, you probably are not surprised to learn that a lot of people on the Internet fall into that third category.
But as I read this news, I couldn’t help but think back to immediately following UFC 214 and seeing so many people posting loving, congratulatory, “couldn’t have happened to a better guy” social media posts post-Jones win.
Now as someone who has seen my sister excoriated on by the aforementioned “people of the Internet” because she refused a handshake, this jumped out to me.
Hold on, I remember thinking. Isn’t this the guy who failed two drug tests? Isn’t this the guy who pulled a hit-and-run on a pregnant woman? The answer for those of you keeping score at home is – yes and yes. (For those who are going to say, it was only two failed tests: please read here. Including this latest test, he twice tested positive for banned substances and once before that for “just” cocaine. Whether or not he should have been tested for cocaine out of competition is debatable, but the test result isn’t.)
And that’s not even getting into this “role model’s” bragging about his use of cocaine and f-bomb tirade against the cops. And for those of you so turned off by Ronda’s “trash talk,” let’s not forget that Jones was the instigator of this infamous “Pussy, Are You Still There?” video:
And yet – even up until he got busted for the THIRD time, the third fucking time – people were singing Jon Jones’ praises.
For the unfamiliar, here is what Ronda did that apparently made people seethe with Internet vitriol (many of whom are still inexplicably outraged): talked trash, didn’t touch gloves, didn’t shake hands, didn’t talk to media after a loss. Therefore, that somehow makes her a terrible person. No, really, that’s it. Somehow this trumps her pioneering of a sport, multiple world titles, charity work, how genuine she is with fans and her many other amazing qualities.
Just a quick recap from above on Jones: talked trash, failed a drug test, failed a drug test, failed a drug test (that’s not a copy-and-paste error, that’s three failed tests), hit-and-run on a pregnant woman, berated a cop and bragged about cocaine use. (Sorry if I’m missing items from that list, like I said, I don’t follow UFC that closely.) And from the headlines I’ve read so far, we’re not yet jumping to conclusions. I mean, let’s not get bogged down by things like science (which is what drug testing is).
So for the record, I just want to get this straight, not even for Ronda’s sake – she doesn’t need my help on that because she’s doing just fine – to borrow a line from Conor McGregor:
But I want to make sure this is clear for all girls and women – because whether they be fighters or athletes or politicians or tech entrepreneurs or astrophysicists – this is a universal issue. There is a ridiculous double standard for the expectations to which women are held. It is beyond bullshit. And you do not have to accept it. You do not have to sit there and stay quiet. In fact, I think it’s a disservice to pretend it’s not an issue.
To ignore this reality means too many girls grow up thinking that it’s just them. They should know that it’s not. They should know that you will have no choice in being subjected to the ridiculously differing standards to which men and women are held in societies around the world – including our own – but you can choose to find it unacceptable.
So yeah, I’m maybe I’m missing something – like the ability to separate myself from reality and live in the land of make believe where there’s some way you can justify how this isn’t a textbook example of the ultimate double standard.
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