No.Nonsense.

I didn’t watch the Olympics because sports are a snooze fest for me. I watch the Super Bowl, and that’s my one entry to sports viewing each year. It doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention, though. I may not be sitting in front of the television, cheering on the athletes in the Olympics in real time, but I love the stories of those athletes. I love seeing them work their whole lives to reach the pinnacle of athleticism, standing on that platform with a medal around their necks. I feel the disappointment when they have a struggle and don’t do as well as they wanted.

This year, you had Alysa Liu whose father escaped China after Tiananmen Square to make a better life for his family. Alysa was born in the US but with the knowledge of what her father had lived. When China attempted to recruit her to skate for them, offering her untold fame and fortune, she said no. After years of competition for the US, she left figure skating. After two years, she decided she missed it and came back into the sport but determined to do it her way. And she won gold.

You have the Quad God, Illia Milanin, whose parents came from Russia. He was the literal golden boy who was the favorite to win the gold medal. He was in the lead going into the finals where he literally fell out of the contention. When asked what happened, he made no excuses, simply citing that he got stuck in his head and didn’t perform up to par. Afterwards, he came back in the gala skate to close out the competition and nailed every jump and every turn and proved you don’t need a medal to still be the best.

Moving on to the women’s hockey team, they took down the Canadian team with a 2-1 victory in the finals of a hard fought contest and won gold.

And you have the men’s hockey team who pulled off its first gold medal since the 1980 Miracle on Ice team. In overtime, they went for a sudden death standoff with the Canadian team and won, ending a 46 year drought.

And then you have Amber Glenn.

After finishing 13th place in her first round of women’s figure skating, she declared how hard it was for a queer person in the US right now. Social justice is all well and good but you can’t claim oppression when you are literally standing as an athlete in the premier sporting event of the world. At that point, oppression is not what you are experiencing. She later rallied back to finish fifth overall which is an amazing accomplishment. After the fact, however, she claimed her poor performance at the beginning was because of- wait for it- her period.

As a woman I want to literally scream.

How many times have we heard as women that we do not measure up to men because of our hormones making us crazy, emotional basket cases who can’t be trusted with the nuclear codes because we might blow up the world in a fit of PMS?

Amber, darling, using your period as an excuse for your poor performance has just walked us all a step back.

Everyday, women around the world suck it up and keep going no matter our hormones, our cramps, or our flow. We live our lives and do our jobs. We figure it out and make it work. And we thank God when we reach that point in our lives when that curse is past and we never have to think about it again.

We pull up our big girl panties and we get it done.

Paltry excuses are unbecoming of an Olympian, an athlete, and a woman. Stand up, work hard, fight harder, and make every woman proud to be named in the same class as you. That’s the true gold medal.