Her physical appearance along with accusations from defeated rivals because of her great improvements have contributed to the questioning of her gender. After watching the clip in class from YouTube with Zirin, it just backed up my opinions even more. It is absurd for this 18 year old girl to have to be put through gender testing because of other people's insecurities. I find it really disturbing because they are only testing certain athletes. The IAAF is discriminating against female athletes because of other people's opinions. This can cause a lot of self esteem issues for these young girls. I think that if the IAAF is going to subject anyone to gender testing, then it should be universal. Everyone should be tested.
I think you bring up a pretty good point. I, too, feel that the IAAF should be fair in their sex testing, and if they are going to test, they should not just choose certain targeted athletes. If every athlete is required to be tested upon participation, it would eliminate a sense of discrimination and also would help deter those who would be in violation of crossing the gender barrier from attempting to slide past.
ReplyDeleteAs far as her appearance, I believe it was touched upon in class about the way our culture perceives male and female versus what may be perceived in South Africa. YouMagazine recently did a feature on a Makeover of the young 18yr old athlete (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/sep/07/caster-semenya-makeover). Perhaps this may help with the acceptance of her image.
I completely agree!!! This is the reason why women are so insecure. Everyone is always judging women on what they look like and not their skills. I think that it's disgusting that a male athlete can look however he wants and be the best but if a female is good at a sport people say "yeah, she's good but she looks like a man."
ReplyDeleteGreat points by all of you on the case of Caster Semenya. I am glad that Bryan shared the article about the photos of her makeover. It is sad to me that such steps are perceived to be needed in order to bring greater acceptance. I remember people trying to "soften" Martina Navratilova's image when she started playing pro tennis. Like Courtney says, this is one reason why women (especially in sport) are so insecure.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, more recent news about Semenya reports that she is a hermaphrodite. Here is an article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/6170229/Caster-Semenya-is-a-hermaphrodite-tests-show.html
I wonder what this will mean for her career in track and field.
I really appreciate the article that Bryan added to his comment. I went ahead and posted the picture of Caster's makeover to the end of my blog. This should definitely give everyone a new perspective of her.
ReplyDeleteI reviewed the article that Dr Spencer posted over Caster being a hermaphrodite and I too can't help but wonder what will come of her career. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes. She is getting her femininity and her athletic accomplishments stripped from her all at once. Talk about insecurity, she doesn't even know who she is anymore...
It was recently determined that Caster Semenya is classified as a hermaphrodite. This raises a lot of questions. I agree with you when you say that you find it disturbing that they are testing certain athlete, but if the people testing these athletes are right about there allegations are they really in the wrong or are they just doing their job.
ReplyDeleteThe question I have now is what happens next. Caster Semenya career as a women’s track and field runner is over. In the eyes of the public it wouldn’t be fair to still let her compete as a women and it wouldn’t be fair to her to compete as a male. I wonder what steps will be taken to help he out?
Not only is Semenya's track career in jeopardy, her life is now too. Reports state that Semenya is going through an emotional breakdown and is under suicide watch. Is it fair for her to run with females if gender test prove that she is not 100% percent female, I'm not sure and that will always be a debatable topic. Is it fair for her to run with males and lose even though she is part female, I'm not sure and that will always be a debatable topic. But, I am sure that it isn't fair for the public to attack this young athlete to the point of potential suicide because of HER appearance. As an athlete on the world stage SHE signed up for ridicule on how she runs, how she acts before and after a race, and what she puts in her body. But SHE did not sign up to be ridiculed on how she looks and what her genitals look like, and its things like this that make me frown at society.
ReplyDeleteAfter hearing about the recent news of the results of Casters gender tests I think there may still be hope. Caster is only 18 years old and hopefully some type of verdict is reached soon so that she/he can still compete. It is a shame that it was brought to attention on a world stage but maybe this case is the pioneer case that may answer a lot of questions and open doors to people with this type of gender. There is always a first and usually it is the first person who endures a lot and most of the hardships, but who knows maybe in the near future when a verdict is reached we will be talking about Casrer Semenya as a pioneer to her sport like Jackie Robinson was to baseball, you just never know.
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