Mary Cain's courageous op-ed (Read 277 times)

+100

 For starters: more women in leadership positions of everything, everywhere.

kilkee she made a decision AS AN ADULT to continue her relationship with him. She made the decision when she was 17, almost 18 to go run for Oregon Project. Kids sign up for the military, or college sports, at the same age. I have plenty of compassion but for her to blame everything on him is unfair. She made the choice to stay there year after year after year. yeah. I'm sure there were pressures on her from family and friends to go be the best. Yeah I'm sure it REALLY sucked to feel like you'd be letting those people down if you didn't do what they said. Even Shalane said she didn't reach out AND SHE SAW HER STRUGGLING! Making adult decisions at a young age sucks. Like Bill said, all the problems aren't due to NOP. I guess since you've survived an abusive relationship I'd expect you to understand the amount of energy and effort it takes to get out of that kind of relationship vs staying in the relationship day after day, month after month, year after year thinking it would somehow get better. She never did. No one helped her. Hopefully someone helped you and you're able to help others. I'd never treat someone that way so it's challenging to understand where the justification comes from. I'd also choose not to be in that type of relationship regardless of what it cost me. I'd rather be dead than have someone make me feel like I'm worthless emotionally or physically on a daily basis.

 

Seriously.  How is this hard to understand?

 

And to blame the victim in all of this?  Just how out of touch does one really have to be to blame the victim?

When you choose to stay in an abusive relationship how are you a victim?  It is hard for me to understand someone being a victim when they're continuing a relationship destructive to themselves. How out of touch does one really have to be to stay in a relationship where you tell the other person you've started cutting yourself, the person you tell shows how little they care, and you stay in the relationship?

For me, it is impossible to understand staying in a relationship with anyone who treats you like she outlines. Telling you to lose weight, telling you what to eat. Treating you like you're nothing because I wouldn't stay with someone who treated me this way. There are lots of ways to get help for abuse. I'm not blaming the victim. I'm blaming the adult who made decisions to cut weight in order to stay competitive then mentally defeated herself before a race started as the reason the adult was suffering for over two years. Just like anyone who hates their job but stays there because they need the money or benefits. Maybe professional athletes expect some kind of horrible treatment. I guess I'm out of touch with how professional athlete's lives with coaches are to be expected.

For me, it is impossible to understand staying in a relationship with anyone who treats you like she outlines. Telling you to lose weight, telling you what to eat. Treating you like you're nothing because I wouldn't stay with someone who treated me this way. 

Good for you that you've never been in a bad relationship. Hindsight is powerful and sometimes you don't see how bad it's gotten until it's really bad. Then you get out but the damage is often already done.

 

Good for you that you've never been in a bad relationship. Hindsight is powerful and sometimes you don't see how bad it's gotten until it's really bad. Then you get out but the damage is often already done.

Echoing this + similar sentiments from others. I know a number of good people who have gotten out of bad relationships. Abusers aren't obvious monsters, that's how they're successful. They're just sweet enough to their victims, just nice enough to family and friends, or just good enough at coaching amazing athletes to make you think you're the problem. If only YOU were just better at X, Y, or Z, they wouldn't have to treat you like crap. It might be obvious from the outside... but sometimes it's not even obvious from the outside. And sometimes the person on the receiving end of the abuse KNOWS they should leave, but it's too costly or dangerous to leave.

Re: the program's role in this, I had a lengthy discussion about it with another group this morning. I think the approach of "well this training worked for X, so all of my athletes will do it, and if they break down, they just weren't good enough" is dumb in this day and age. Individuals need different things, regardless of gender, and women are built differently than men. That has nothing to do with deserving legal protection and equal rights, of COURSE we deserve to be treated like humans, we just physiologically cannot all be expected to train like small men and thrive. There's a lot of hormone and body fat stuff that men simply do not account for when coaching women.

We do need more women in coaching and other positions of power in the sport. We need to teach our girls to stand up for themselves when things aren't right and aren't working for them. They need to understand the gravity of RED-S and how easy it is to get there, and that weight isn't everything when your bones are cracking within you. I cried while watching the video and then I went out and co-coached my daughter and 6 other 10-11 year old girls through a track workout this afternoon. I can't fix the entire sport but I am damn sure going to make some good changes to it in my little corner of the world.

 

Not all coaches fit athletes. She made the decision to stick in an abusive relationship. It's devastating to hear she went through this. At the end of every day it was her choice to stick with who she thought was the best coach in the nation. Mary doesn't say she took the pills she knew weren't allowed in her sport. She posed for photos for the New York Times article. She stuck with Nike and lined up for races she'd lost mentally before they started. So all that training and money spent on her doesn't matter when it could have gone to another athlete who might have fit their program.

 

Yes the system is "sick" when you tell someone you cut yourself and they don't care. Your parents saved you and that is wonderful. Think of any job where the boss doesn't care about you and you're just there to do your job and you personally don't matter. You can be replaced at any time. How you feel emotionally doesn't matter to them. Welcome to the non-professional athlete world. Those of us who hate our job, feel picked on or bullied, isolated, condemned, trapped, made to feel insignificant, made to feel stupid because our ideas aren't good enough or we're not smart enough to work on those challenging tasks don't get to blame our boss for our personal dissatisfaction. No one gives those people an article and platform saying our employer needs to change. They are told to "find a different job" because the emotional abuse is different for some reason.

 

If she has a way to get women into power I'd love to hear it. Instead of forcing women to fend for themselves they have to be protected. they're obviously a privileged class. They need different treatment and attention than their male counterparts who are required to fend for themselves. So much for "women can do anything a man can do" and "equal pay for equal work" when you're saying women need to be treated differently.  If Nike controls that much of running it won't matter if women are in power. They'll be Nike's women.

 

 

You have.. legitimately no idea what you're talking about.

As stated, she was a CHILD when she did this. You have no idea what it's like to be in a competitive sport with a corrupt governing body where CHILDREN are taught they are disposable and yet, have a talent that they want to pursue. Comparing it to a job is insane, for so many reasons including but not limited to... the fact that children are different and oh, most young girls in sports are PAYING TO DO IT, or more accurately, the system is really fucked up and secretive. 

Also, most of us don't get told at our "crappy jobs" that our body is the problem and get our body, diet, and emotions manipulated. 

-signed, someone that did elite gymnastics for 5 years, and probably knows more about this stuff than you

 

You have.. legitimately no idea what you're talking about.

Hard agree.

Plus, if all you've got to offer on a topic is victim blaming and what-about-ism, maybe just strongly consider shutting the fuck up. In fact, shutting the fuck up is a super underrated tactic that can be applied in many different circumstances and walks of life.

LetsRun has the transcript of (Mary Cain's) video essay posted.

I wasn’t even trying to make the Olympics anymore. I was just trying to survive. So I made the painful choice and I quit the team.

Those reforms (Nike shutting down the NOP) are mostly a direct result of the doping scandal. They’re not acknowledging the fact that there is a systemic crisis in women’s sports and at Nike where young girls’ bodies are being ruined by an emotionally and physically abusive system. That’s what needs to change and here’s how we can do it.

JHFC

 

You have.. legitimately no idea what you're talking about.

 -signed, someone that did elite gymnastics for 5 years, and probably knows more about this stuff than you

The little bit I know about your past is just a slight understanding I have as to the subject. The fact you were able to come out and talk about it lets me know just a little bit about how much pressure I shouldn't put on my own child growing up. I appreciate what information you've given me and I'm not trying to be a smartass or anything. I seriously appreciate it.

I guess I need to be in an abusive relationship to understand it more. I'll "shut the fuck up now" and try to educate myself on what it takes to be an elite athlete made to feel like shit about everything I do. There seems to be no other way to understand this according to everyone here. Maybe I'll just go run since this is a running forum.