Gabby Douglas Doesn’t Care If You Like Her Hair

Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas has made a great showing at the London Olympics, but it hasn’t stopped naysayers from focusing on her hairstyle rather than her performance at the events.

Gabby Douglas has performed very well in her events, but naysayers have inexplicably complained that while pulling off her flawless moves on the world stage, the young Olympiad’s hair was just… not all that impressive to them.

Gabby Douglas, however, did not realize you could medal in braids. And it is sad, as the Olympics occur again, that female athletes are marginalized and again, unlike their male counterparts, judged on appearance as well as a world-class performance — witness the hubbub sparked by women’s volleyball and whether or not the athletes wear bikinis as a testament to this particular sexist ugliness still being batted about.

But Gabby Douglas, even at 16, is not letting the haters harsh her Olympic mellow — on the subject of complaints about her hair, the Olympic champ says:

“I don’t know where this is coming from. What’s wrong with my hair? I’m like, ‘I just made history and people are focused on my hair?’ It can be bald or short, it doesn’t matter about hair.”

The focus on one’s appearance could throw a person off their game, and Gabby Douglas wouldn’t be blamed for finding the unnecessary criticism distracting. Still, the star gymnast has not taken the haters to heart, and she has a message for them:

“Nothing is going to change… I’m going to wear my hair like this during beam and bar finals. You might as well just stop talking about it.”

Do you think that Gabby Douglas’ hair is just fine the way it is?