Aly Rasiman, the female gymnast to win Olympic gold-medal, proved words are enough to empower a survivor. She recently posed nude for a swimsuit issue’s portion named “In Her Own Words”. The swimsuit issue was designed for the Sports Illustrated magazine for the year 2018.
Raisman is a winner of Olympic medal for a total of six times which includes 3 golds, along with 2 silvers and one bronze. For the shoot, she wore nothing but few words and phrases written on her cloth less body. The words included “Trust Yourself”, “Every Voice Matters” and “Fierce”.
During an interaction in the party organized by Sports Illustrated on a Wednesday night, Raisman explained that she wanted to start with the project “In Her Own Words”, the minute she saw the draft for the same. Her instant thought at the moment was to select the words that accurately represented her to be placed on her skin.
She defined this move as something of extreme importance and power. It proves a point illustrating the fact that modesty is never equal to respect. Respect should come for the person and not for the clothes worn. Raisman was among the gymnasts who spoke in the court of law against sexual abuse from the doctor of gymnastics team named “Larry Nassar”. This got him convicted with decades to be spent in the prison cell.
Following this, her speech at the court went viral which bagged her attention from the media. She was appreciated for her show of courage which wasn’t easy. Raisman described that she might have looked strong at that moment but later she felt weak and messed up which took her a couple of weeks to help recover from the trauma and stress of coming forward with such case.
Now, Raisman aims to prevent any such abuse for any women in future be it a sportswomen or everyday housewife. She hopes that the generation ahead of us doesn’t have to come up with the word “Me Too” to depict any kind of sexual abuse.
