{"id":140444,"date":"2025-09-16T05:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T05:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/140444\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T05:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T05:10:07","slug":"some-comments-were-barbaric-i-chose-to-take-a-step-back-from-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/140444\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Some comments were barbaric… I chose to take a step back from social media’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wales<\/a> international Georgia Evans<\/a> has spoken out about the online abuse she has received for wearing make-up and a bow in her hair while playing professional rugby.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Partnership for Male Youth, a US non-profit campaigning to highlight online bullying and how young men can protect women in sport, the Saracens<\/a> forward detailed the personal impact of comments made about her appearance during the Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a female rugby player. I\u2019m currently playing for Saracens Women and I\u2019ve been here for the past five years. I\u2019ve also been professional with Wales for the last three, and I will always be very proud to have represented my nation with the girls alongside me,\u201d said Evans.<\/p>\n

\u201cMyself and many other athletes from across the world have just come together for what is the biggest World Cup women\u2019s rugby has ever seen. In my second week of being in camp, I was going through some of the comments online. I am known for wearing my pink bow \u2013 I\u2019ve worn it since my first cap and I will continue to do so \u2013 but I came across a number of comments. People said I should concentrate on my playing rather than my appearance.<\/p>\n

The lock admitted that while she was able to laugh off some of the comments, the fact that family members and teammates were also exposed to them made the situation more difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went through a few and had a little bit of a giggle because some of them were just barbaric, but others hit home a little bit more. It was only when multiple people from my team and my family had seen these comments, and were taking them quite personally for me, that I chose to take a step back from social media. I needed time to process it and make sure I was protecting myself as best I could.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Evans, the issue is not criticism of her performance, which she accepts as part of being a professional athlete, but the level of scrutiny directed at her appearance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re in the media you have to be very aware that you\u2019re opening yourself up to public scrutiny for how you play. That is our job, it\u2019s part and parcel of what we do. But I don\u2019t think anything should be as personal or directed at somebody\u2019s appearance, especially when we put ourselves on that stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

She explained that expressing herself through make-up and her trademark bow is about feeling comfortable and confident, not about detracting from her game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI express myself with a bow. I wear a full face of makeup and I put my eyelashes on because I feel good in the morning when I get up and go to rugby. I can still look feminine and still look silly whilst doing my job, and doing it to the best of my ability. If it gives young girls \u2013 and even young boys \u2013 the realisation that you can be who you are, you don\u2019t have to change what you look like or who you are as a person just to do what you love, then that makes it all worth it for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cShining a light on the minority of comments about my appearance was important because it was also a statement: I\u2019m not going to change who I am, and nobody else should feel the need to either.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Saracens forward rounded off by highlighting what she believes supporters can do to help women\u2019s rugby grow \u2013 not grand gestures, but the small acts of encouragement that make a difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of young people, young boys and men that I\u2019ve met over the last couple of weeks, have asked what they can do to show their support for the women\u2019s game. It\u2019s as simple as thinking before you comment. It\u2019s just turning up. Not every young boy or retired old man needs to wear a pink bow in his hair \u2013 that\u2019s not what any of us expect. But just by showing up, just by watching us for five minutes, just by taking your little sister or your neighbour out for a kickabout, it goes a long way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can support one female in your life doing what she wants to do in sport, that\u2019s enough.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wales international Georgia Evans has spoken out about the online abuse she has received for wearing make-up and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-140444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}