via dump9x @ flickr
The story of Caster Semenya is definitely compelling enough for me to fire up my Harpyness writing during my vacation, partly inspired by a reader who urged us to take this on. Semenya is an 18-year-old South African runner, who is now at the center of a media firestorm following allegations that she is actually a he. The basis for these allegations? Apparently it’s nothing more than the fact that she doesn’t appear “feminine.”
Semenya “has grappled with the consequences of looking boyish all her life,” perhaps only because her body and face strike others as falling outside conventional notions of femininity. Several of Semenya’s rivals have not hesitated to jump to conclusions: “An Italian rival, Elisa Cusma Piccione, called her a man. Russian runner Mariya Savinova agreed. ‘Just look at her,’ she told journalists in Berlin.” But a spokesman for The International Assn. of Athletic Federations seems to have at least superficial sympathy for Semenya.
[I]t was clear that whatever the results of the gender tests, “clearly it was not her fault.”
“It’s a medical issue. You’re talking about someone’s life. She was born, christened and grew up a woman,” he said in an interview with the BBC. The aim of the tests, he said, was to discover whether anything gave her an unfair advantage.
An unfair advantage. Huh. And stating that it’s a medical issue before any test results have come in is not exactly a ringing endorsement of anyone’s faith that Semenya is a woman.
Almost all sports scandals these days, particularly in the realm of track and field, have to do with doping. This is a far more difficult landscape to navigate. To begin with, any testing will take months, during which time Semenya’s accomplishments will remain tainted in the eyes of many people. Second of all, it begs the question of whether Semenya can be penalized if her sex is not found to be feminine by whatever scientific standards exist when she has seemingly been regarded as female by her family and herself for her entire life. It also highlights the dangers of conflating sex with gender. If Semenya is completely biologically female, then why is it acceptable for her sex to be suspect merely because she may not fit within a narrowly constructed box of feminine gender? And then there is the complicated matter of what to do if she is found to be intersex. Is she then barred from competing in any events, either male or female?
Semenya’s continued dominance (she won her most recent match on Wednesday in a performance that was called “a performance so dominant it verged on mockery”) has only intensified the scrutiny on the eighteen-year-old, and I find it doubtful that she will escape the wrath of her rivals — or conspiracy theorists — even if the gender testing proves her to be biologically female. There is a terrific rundown on exactly what constitutes the testing Semenya will be subjected to here. As for issues of race, several observers have questioned just how much of this controversy is being fueled by Eurocentric standards of beauty and womanhood, with one organization stating that: “It feeds into the commercial stereotypes of how a woman should look, their facial and physical appearance, as perpetuated by backward Eurocentric definition of beauty. It is this culture which has forced many African women to starve themselves with the objective of reaching the model ramps of Paris and Milan to become the face of this or that product or magazine.”
The IAAF has no hesitation about speaking openly about what must be an extremely personal matter for Semenya, yet then takes over by refusing to allow her to answer questions, with both actions smacking of paternalism. And I question why the testing is necessary if it’s based solely on superficial allegations and not on any substantive proof, let alone why all of this is being made so public. If Semenya has lived her entire life as female with no evidence to the contrary, what right does anyone have to take that identity away from her based on the results of a scientific inquiry that she did not request? The multiple factors at play here won’t go away regardless of the results of the testing. I worry this will set a dangerous precedent for any female athlete who strikes certain observers as being too “masculine.” Conventional notions of gender do not always go hand in hand with biology, and Semenya’s case will hopefully serve as an instructive jumping-off point for those who believe that a “manly” woman cannot truly be a woman.
I think you’re right. Regardless of the outcome of the tests, this will continue to follow her. Its a shame. She’s only 18! I cannot even imagine. I read this morning that after her win yesterday she didn’t even want to take the podium and it broke my heart.
@bluebears: It’s upsetting to say the very least, and it points to just how hazardous it is to believe that notions of gender automatically line up with biological sex. What’s next, testing “effeminate” gay men to see if they’re biologically female? Wait, I don’t want to give anyone any ideas…
I have had to school more people on gender 101 because of this nonsense than I can believe. I’m just shaking my head.
There is so much wrong here. Assumptions that women must look a certain way, that women can’t perform athletically at such-and-such a level, that gender is sex, and that sex is genitals…
But the thing that I keep coming back to, what’s really driving me bonkers (and why I’m glad you took this on, s.o.a.l.g, because I’d just be sputtering), is that there is almost no good way to discredit this garbage withough relying on or propping up other garbage-y ideas. Frex: comparing photos of Semenya’s clothed runner’s body w/ that of other runners, to point out that elite runners have similarly impressive musculature, and often narrower hips than “regular” women. But that implies that there is such a thing as a “regular woman,” objectifies athletes, and legitimizes physical structure as the basis for sex/gender. Inspecting her genitals, for the love of eve, might satisfy some (gross people), but then we tie genital morphology/phenotype to sex and gender. Looking at chromosomes and deciding from there denies that fact that there are chromosomal conditions like Androgen Insensitivity or Klinefelter’s syndrome that complicate ideas of sex and gender. And those are just off the top of my head.
In short: jeebus on toast. Free Caster Semenya!
Her competitors need a lesson from the awesome Dara Torres on respecting one’s competitors. What a shame.
One thing that’s interesting about this is the background: chromosome testing was introduced because of suspicions that Communist Bloc countries were entering biological-males into women’s sporting events.
This, I think, is one reason why this won’t be resolved simply by accepting an athlete’s public gender presentation. International sports are as much about nationalism as the space race ever was; no state is willing to concede what might be a disadvantage (even if the specter of mass chromosome testing to find enough variant toddlers to feed a Warsaw Pact-style sports training apparatus is pretty silly. It’s probably almost -because- it’s silly–”*we* would never do that, but those *foreigners* might…”).
The other part is: well, why do we have categories in the first place? Why not just open competitions? I agree with PhDork that assumptions about women’s sporting ability are typically more grounded on ideology than fact, but nevertheless: currently the WR for men’s 800m is more than 10s faster than for women. This certainly has something to do with which sports have been taken seriously as sports, yes. But if the separation were abolished tomorrow, a lot of sports (glancing at the records, looks like all of Track & Field) would be dominated by men.
If we think the reason to do this classification is the same as for, say, weight classifications in judo or wrestling–that it lets more people have a real shot at being “the best” who otherwise wouldn’t because some feature disadvantages them–then it seems you have to have at least some procedure for enforcing those dividing lines, because of the incentives to slip across to the “easier” category. (This may seem crazy, but cyclists, at least, are willing to do crazy stuff at the high levels; I remember hearing about a poll suggesting most pros would be willing to give up 10 yrs of life if it meant an Olympic gold, or something similar.)
Why do we expect someone to be ‘man’ or ‘woman’? I have worked with people who would be happiest of all to be considered both or neither. We are taught to consider binary notions of gender as an integral part of our personalities and told that it has an “objective” basis in sex. What rot.
It’s interesting to compare the reactions of the South African papers (as I live here) and overseas. The European and American papers I read online focus on the medical/clinical possibilities, whereas South African reports focus on the fact Castor thinks of herself as female and has always been recognised/treated as female. Both are wrong, but I have more sympathy with the South African view, which at least recognises that gender is after all about how your society views your place in it.
[...] is an incredibly fertile breeding ground for this alarmism, as its most recent victim, track star Caster Semenya, can surely tell [...]