Ronda Rousey on her Maxim Shoot and Body Image

Ronda Rousey was asked (15:40) during this Google Hangout chat if magazines such as Maxim objectify women. Rousey had a pretty deep answer and commented about how she purposely came in heavier than normal for the shoot to try and make a statement about not putting out an impossible image of beauty out their for young girls to try and achieve and maintain:

I think it speaks to a truth of society is that we're sexual people, we're sexual beings. Human beings in general are sexual; to pretend that we're not is not doing us any justice or anything like that. And I think that Maxim emphasizes the sexuality of women but I don't think it objectifies them, and that's one of the reasons for the shoot I specifically got heavy for it. I was 143 for the ESPN Body Shoot and I was 151 for the Maxim shoot, and I did that on purpose; because when I was 14...the standard that I held myself to look like was what I perceived the guys my age to want and I saw all of them reading Maxim and stuff like that I never looked like any of those girls...I was not looking at Dove commercials to think what I should look like...So I was trying to think, okay, if I'm going to have any cultural impact at all then I'm going to have to change the idea of what's desirable in general. Because I look at all these girls doing Playboy and Maxim and all this stuff, they like cut weight for these shoots, they don't look like that all the time. And so you're purposely given an impossible standard to be, to be considered the industry standard of what's attractive, and of course if you're never going to be able to meet or maintain that standard, then you're going to buying and buying and buying more things to try and keep that. So I thought for the Maxim shoot that I was going to specifically go out of my way to not diet and go and do that shoot exactly how I'm walking around all the time. In fact I was actually a little bit heavier, and I think that actually has a positive impact, and it doesn't objectify women, it changes the standard of what they're expected to look like.