Ilona Maher's social media bios include the hashtag #beastbeautybrains — a perfect snapshot of how the former Quinnipiac rugby standout and current Team USA star is aiming to spread body positivity through her platform.
And her platform's large. A breakout presence on the field and online during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Maher now boasts 1.1 million followers on TikTok and another 543,000 on Instagram.
Maher built her following during the Tokyo Games mostly by providing fans a behind-the-scenes look at Olympians' everyday experiences. Remember the viral video about the cardboard beds at the Olympic Village? That was from Maher, generating more than 1.7 million likes on TikTok.
After building an engaged audience, Maher began adding in body image positivity messages into her posts. That has led to responses that have ignited her passion to continue doing so.
"I just like hearing from the people who I have impacted positively, hearing, 'You've changed up how I viewed my body,' or 'You've made me feel like I can feel beautiful and I can feel feminine,'" she said at the Team USA Media Summit in April. "Whenever I have people come up to me … whenever I get that message, it means a lot because I think it's helping me, but it's also good to know it's helping others."
Maher knows, from her personal experience and hearing from others, getting women to believe positive thoughts about their bodies is easier said than done. She said this is especially true for girls and women in sports like rugby, where body builds can differ from societal norms of beauty.
"The sport has a lot of stereotypes around, and something that I've tried to really debunk is I believe that rugby is a very physical game … but I also think you don't have to sacrifice your femininity or your beauty by playing it," Maher said. "That's a little bit why I wear the lipstick when I play. I can tackle hard and run hard but also you know still feel beautiful and still bring that into it. It's not like you have to sacrifice that."
This passionate belief paired with Maher's platform as an Olympian and social media influencer fuels her content. It's why she regularly posts photos of herself modeling clothes and promoting the idea that women can play physical contact sports without losing a sense of beauty.
"I think a lot of girls feel with a lot of sports, whether it's rugby, softball, some other sport, that to play those sports you have to sacrifice who you felt you were because of the stereotypes around it," Maher said.
In one post on Instagram and TikTok, Maher provided a 360-degree look at her body with the below message to emphasize body positivity.
"Hey everyone, just your monthly reminder that this is the body of a professional athlete," Maher says in the video. "This is the body of an Olympian. It's not perfect. It's not completely lean. It's not completely toned, but this body is amazing, and it does amazing things for me."
Sports are among those amazing things, Maher added. She thinks sports are a perfect avenue for girls to find a purpose for their body, regardless of the shape or size.
"For me, it's also important getting girls into sports because it shows you what your body's capable of," Maher said. "As women, a lot of times our body has been this object to be looked at, something to be objectified, and I hate that there's girls out there who don't know or think they don't have a purpose for their body so they want to change it constantly."
A talented high school softball, field hockey and basketball athlete, Maher was involved in sports from an early age. She started to feel burnout, however, as she neared her senior season and was considering moving on from sports. Her father, a former rugby player, convinced her to try something new and give rugby a try. She clicked with the sport at her first pickup game, and the purpose she felt like the sport gave her was a big reason why.
"To get into sports … it gives your body a purpose, shows what it can do and what it's capable of, and it's not just something that is for others to judge," she said. "So for my mental health, knowing how much sports has changed me and made me a stronger person, I know that sports can do that, and rugby can do that for so many others."
In addition to the purpose it provided, getting involved in rugby — one of six sports in the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program — set off a chain of events that changed Maher's college plans, too. Eventually, it led her to Quinnipiac to play rugby for her final three seasons and graduate with a nursing degree. Awarded the MA Sorensen Award recognizing the national player of the year and named Quinnipiac female athlete of the year as a senior, Maher certainly left her impact at the school but has emphasized that the positive impact went both ways.
"Quinnipiac rugby shaped me into the athlete I am today," she said during the Tokyo Olympics. "The 6 a.m. lifts and competitive environments allowed me to thrive and grow. It prepared me by putting me in high-pressure situations and helped me to figure out ways to remain productive."
