Too Good for a Girl
Last year, Jeré Longman wrote an article published by the New York Times discussing the controversy of Caster Semenya and her ability to compete in elite women’s sports.
In 2009 at the Berlin World Championships, 18-year-old Caster Semenya won the 800 by more than two seconds. Semenya was barred from the competition when Pierre Weiss, the general secretary of the International Association of Athletics Federations, stated, “She is a woman, but maybe not 100 percent.”
The South African runner was questioned solely based on her build and her speed, and was then forced to undergo intrusive “sex testing.” Semenya was eventually able to compete again, but the International Olympic Committee as well as a few other major sports governing bodies enacted new eligibility rules, intending to mitigate the outrage over the way Caster Semenya’s case was handled.
The policy put in place was problematic at best. It targeted women with “abnormally” high testosterone levels. Those whose levels were deemed too high were then forced to either have surgery or take drugs in order to lower the hormone level in order to compete. Any refusals could result in a permanent ban from elite women’s sports.
Testosterone testing has since been eradicated from Olympic activities, but the fact that it was ever established, as a factor to filter out women who may have an unfair advantage in sports should not be ignored. Some of the authors main arguments against the policy include the idea that testosterone levels in men are never tested, as well as the fact that there is no evidence that increased testosterone levels give athletes an unfair advantage. Also, there are other biological and situational factors that do benefit athletes, including height, access to coaching, the ability to train at high altitudes, and more.
Last week we discussed the one-sex/two-sex controversy. I believe the case on Caster Semenya shows the two-sex model certainly isn’t perfect. The class readings have allowed me to view this as an issue of the binary and not just women’s issues in general. This problem at the Olympic level is a very difficult one, because in order to have men and women’s competitions, we must have a way to divide the human population into those two categories. It seems as though the committees for the Olympics have since decided that an intersex individual is allowed to compete as the gender they were given at birth. Of course this is still leaving out many people, so there is still work to be done. Where is the line? What qualities make someone enough of a woman to compete in women’s sports, especially at the international level?
Sources:
Picture taken from http://howafrica.com/rio-olympics-south-africans-rally-behind-800m-golden-girl-semenya/
