Five Double Standards in the Criticism of Simone Biles

After Simone Biles withdrew from the Olympic competition, her critics revealed several harmful double standards. While attention understandably focused on Simone Biles, these double standards are based on a broader set of enduring misconceptions that extend beyond any particular case. Here are five of these misconceptions.

1) Emotional health is not as real as physical health.

When an NBA player takes himself out of a game due to a hamstring pull, he is greeted with sympathy and concern, as he should be. When a top-level athlete pulls out of competition due to serious emotional difficulty, that athlete may be harshly criticized as weak or spoiled.

This profound double standard has plagued psychology for many years, and it needs to be corrected. Emotional difficulties are real. Anxiety can be debilitating. Depression can be deadly. In fact, the treatment for anxiety and depression shows the inextricable connections between emotional and bodily health, with the most comprehensive treatments involving a combination of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy and medication.

Fortunately, the current generation has shown more enlightenment than previous ones. But stigma remains, and serious emotional difficulty is often misinterpreted as weakness and laziness by some media and the general public.

2) Excellence demands stoic disregard for one’s health.

Source: Erica Busik Batten/Pexels

If someone playing recreational softball feels anxiety or gets injured, leaving the game is met with concern. As athletes move to higher and higher levels of competition, emotional and physical difficulties are progressively minimized in favor of staying in the game. Higher levels of competition bring along greater responsibility – up to a point.

However, the actual damage from ignoring serious mental health issues is independent of the level of competition. Having more money or prestige at stake does not ameliorate the underlying difficulties or their effects on athletes.

3) The present moment matters most.

We naturally privilege the present. That is one quality of being human. But with matters of health, we also need to look to the near future and the more distant future.

Many veterans of the NFL are now suffering lifetimes of cognitive and physical disability because they stayed with their sport year after year, long after indications of serious damage. Athletic organizations are concerned with future damage, but they still need to work on graciously accepting athletes' decisions to leave an important game or a critical season to maintain their long-term health.

4) The current generation is more self-interested and sensitive than previous generations.

Concerning mental health, the main distinction between young adults of today and young adults of previous generations is awareness. The criticism of young people as spoiled and too sensitive fails to consider the ways previous generations suffered from and then managed their own emotional difficulties. In some cases, this management took the form of hidden self-medication through alcohol and prescription drugs. Emotional difficulties have always existed. What’s different now is increased openness, not increased frailty or self-interest.

5) One size fits all in dedicating oneself to competition.

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At the highest levels, athletic endeavors are tremendously demanding, but different sports have different consequences for loss of concentration. Losing focus on the balance beam is more dangerous than losing focus in the 100-meter freestyle. Feeling unable to compete in ski jumping or high diving has different consequences from feeling unable to compete in volleyball. This is not setting up value judgments across different sports; it is simply a recognition of the differences in the potential for life-altering injuries.

Parting Words

One main theme that emerges from recent high-profile withdrawals from the athletic competition is the need for qualified professionals to educate the general public about mental health.

Most people understand the implications of a hamstring injury or a torn tendon. But more work is needed to communicate the potentially debilitating effects of emotional difficulties.