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    • ‘DWTS’ Star Ilona Maher Opens Up About ‘Male’ Stereotypes
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    ‘DWTS’ Star Ilona Maher Opens Up About ‘Male’ Stereotypes

    Vaseline Posted on

    • On September 17, Olympian Ilona Maher will make her debut at Dancing with the stars.
    • She opened up to Women Health about growing up with a ‘male’ sport like rugby.
    • Ilona wants to normalize different body types.

    Tonight Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher will make her Dancing with the stars debut, performing a cha cha to Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” But for the 28-year-old, this dance means more than most.

    Since the official cast was announced, Ilona has been vocal about her desire to “show what my body type can do, and how beautiful it can be in all kinds of spaces.” It’s a similar sentiment to the one she shared with Women Health before the Olympics, when she talked about why she enjoys her sport in the first place. (Ilona is (the first rugby player to compete in the Mirrorball Trophy.)

    “Rugby requires a certain kind of person and a certain kind of personality. For women in particular, it’s a person who is willing to break societal norms, in a certain way, and play a sport that is generally seen as masculine, masculine and too physical for women,” she says. “These are girls who said, ‘No, turn that around. I’m just as strong. I’m just as powerful.'”

    Over the summer, Ilona helped Team USA win their first rugby medal in 100 years. The ladies used a “high woman philosophy” to inspire them, telling Women Health that they played for the women before and after us.

    Ilona brings the same energy to her social media accounts, which have millions of followers. She’s a big advocate for body positivity on TikTok in particular, and even if it gets “repetitive,” Ilona says she’ll never stop normalizing larger body types.

    “It’s just important for these girls to see me all the time, to show that being big can be beautiful, and that it doesn’t diminish your femininity in some way,” she says. “Growing up, I didn’t have any athletes—other than Serena Williams—who looked like me and played sports like me. I want to be someone who’s there (so girls) don’t feel like they have to change.”

    Before she joined rugby, the Vermont native said she was seen as a “strong girl.” But when she joined a local rugby club at another high school, Ilona was “celebrated” for her body instead of being ostracized.

    Now she hopes to show that she is not only graceful on the court, but also on the dance floor. She has partnered with Alan Bersten, who took home first place with Bachelorette (2019 alumnus Hannah Brown.)

    “All body types can dance and express themselves through dance,” Ilona said Good morning America before the cast announcement. “I don’t think you’ll see a lot of my body types doing the tango, the rumba, the cha cha… when you see my body type moving like that, it shows that all kinds of body types can do so many different things.”

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