You might remember reading about South African track star Caster Semenya over the summer, the athlete who won a Gold Medal in the 800 meter race at this year's IAAF World Championship-- and then became a lightning rod for controversy when she was accused of being less than completely female.
The Sports Ministry of South Africa has announced today that Caster will be retaining the medal and prize money that she won while setting a world record for the 800 meter run last August, and that the results of her 'sex-verification testing' are a private matter, with final outcome still pending.
Poor handling of these matters by athletic officials resulted in a personal roller-coaster that no athlete should be subjected to, highlighting the need for a revision or tightening up of procedures and policies relating to gender at every level of coaching and administration.
In other words, the IAAF needs stand fast with a well-understood policy, and it needs to be upheld by every level of coach, official, and athlete in order to spare future athletes the experience of being second-guessed so publicly.
I think that good will come from all of this. Every conversation about gender that makes its way onto prime-time TV brings us one step closer to a revised popular attitude about women, gender, and sports.
And these conversations have been popping up a lot lately.
With all the heated talk about women's sports lately, it can be easy to forget how controversial and violent men's sports often get.
For every blogger who was inspired to make a misogynistic comment about the video, another has risen to question the standards of aggressive sport behavior and of gender performance being pulled into focus.
The whole world is watching their blogroll and Youtube comments... some of them might actually be learning something!
Out of every state in the nation, South Carolina offers the most single-sex school programs. As a matter of fact, they're offered in more than 150 South Carolina schools.
A survey conducted this year revealed the reason--more than 5,000 students, 720 parents, and 680 students gave the programs rave reviews, saying the programs help students in areas such as confidence, independence, and class participation. Both boys and girls showed improvement, and African Americans were the ethnicity that showed the largest improvement.
A South Carolina paper also mentioned that "Nearly three-fifths of the students said single-gender classes had increased their grades, self-confidence, interest in trying new ways of learning, class participation and ease in making friends."
However, critics of single-sex education point out that students will have to interact in a mixed-sex environment eventually, and that single-sex programs don't help students learn how to interact with other genders.
Furthermore, students who might not conform to gender norms--or who just don't feel comfortable interacting with only one sex--can be very isolated and left-out in such programs.
What do you think about single-sex programs? Do you think they help students? Or are they actually debilitating? Comment below!
The Associated Press is reporting that 18-year-old South African runner, Caster Semenya is on suicide watch after recent tests revealed (in front of the entire world no less) that she is intersex.
At the time of posting, Semenya's test results were still unknown. I posed a hypothetical and futuristic scenario about gender neutral Olympics where all is well with athletes competing in non sex-segregated sporting events. A utopic scenario, I admit.
Now it all seems to have taken a turn for the worst. According to the AP report "officials as saying that psychologists are caring [for] the 18-year-old round-the-clock after it was claimed tests had proved she was a hermaphrodite."
South African lawmaker Butana Komphela, said: "[Semenya] is like a raped person. She is afraid of herself and does not want anyone near her. If she commits suicide, it will be on all our heads. The best we can do is protect her and look out for her during this trying time."
The mere fact that it's gotten to the point that Semenya is reportedly on suicide watch indicates that we've all failed; sports officials, consumers, and media. We've done what we always do; react like vultures when consuming someone else's personal story and personal tragedy. Probing so deeply into this woman's life while taking away her voice in the process illustrates our failure as a global society to care for our own; our daughter.
I'm not being hyperbolic either. Within the past few weeks, I've encounter some disturbing commentary on popular blog sites and so-called "news sources" (for obvious reasons, I won't like back to these sites). Folks calling Semenya out of her name, insisting she's a 'freak of nature.' Otherizing her so much to the point that somewhere along the line she felt it necessary to perform her gender on a magazine cover, just to prove to us - the voyeurs - that she is who she identifies as.
The damage has been done. Semenya is a victim of modern-day voyeurism. Without context and without care, we, the folks, raped her by violating her personhood. By casting a chastising eye on her, we've denied her the right have the quality of life she deserves. Having an open and fair-minded discussion about gender identity in sports is fair game, (and I'm sure the debate will only explode from this point on) but exploiting a person's story as a way to essentially mask our own fears of the Other is (what Tweeters would refer to as) an #epic fail.
Caster Semenya's story also indicates another important issue concerning women of color and mental health. I recently wrote about this very topic highlighting yet another woman of color apparently suffering from mental illness while in the virtual world spot light.
Should sports and government officials have handled Semenya's situation differently? Absolutely. Especially when considering that her personal medical tests results were revealed to the entire world. She has nothing, I repeat, nothing, to prove to you or me.
Should bloggers and commenters have self-censored themselves before posting derogatory and misleading commentary about Semenya, intersexuality, and hermaphroditsm? Without a doubt.
Sadly, none of the above occurred, and because of these blunders of epic proportions a young 18-year-old woman reportedly sits contemplating her life's demise, despite being one of the most promising track & field athletes of our time.
Enough is really enough. Even though so much damage has already been done, it would behoove us as a collective to support our daughter during this time with prayers, meditations, reflective blog posts, supportive Twitter/Facebook updates; whatever suites your fancy. We've got some serious redeeming to do.
Caster Semenya, you have my love and support.
Tara
(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
**UPDATE: Former track & field Olympian, Carl Lewis, speaks out, stating that ASA officials are to blame for how the Semenya story has been playing out around the world.
"It's your fault." Lewis goes on to say that athletics officials should have protected Caster Semenya from the controversy: "She is your athlete in your country and you didn't deal with this before. To put it out in front of the world like that, I am very disappointed in them because I feel that it is unfair to her."
It's barely been a week since Play City bloggers Tara and Debbie started covering the controversy about South African runner Caster Semenya, but a ton has happened since. In case you haven't heard, the 18-year old athlete's sex and gender came into question after she became world champion of the 800 meter run this summer, and some critics have been demanding that the athlete submit to 'gender testing' to ascertain whether she'll be allowed to hold onto her medals.
Since the whole ruckus got started, Caster has put what many call her 'feminine side' on display by appearing on the cover of the British magazine "You". The runner told reporters "I enjoyed the shoot, wish I could do more, but I can’t because I don’t have time for them. I have training to prepare for the Commonwealth Games, which are soon, and [studies] to get through at the same time." She says that the photo shoot was more about having a good time than proving herself to critics.
The photos may have changed some folks' minds, but things are far from settled in Semenya's public life. Yesterday, Caster's coach Wilfred Daniels resigned from his position as mentor and trainer to the controversial athlete after learning that she was submitted to gender verification tests months ago, without either party's understanding, ie, she was tricked. Daniels said "Because of my negligence, she went through all that."
Seems fishy to me. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) claims that no such tests were carried out, aside from a test which Caster knowingly performed after the victory which started this whole mess off. The final results from testing aren't available yet, but the Daily Telegraphhas reported that preliminary tests show Semenya posessing three times the amount of the hormone testosterone as a 'normal' woman. With the tests looking shady, the coach looking shady, and the public looking to tabloid pictures, it's tough to say just what the heck is really going on.
If the events have taught me anything on a personal level, it's that the line between 'male' and 'female' is not as clear cut as people seem to think it is. Unfortunately, our places in sports, education, and social life are determined by whether we appear to our friends and neighbors as 'male' or 'female', and the systems that we have in place to raise healthy and intelligent young people hit a serious roadblock when presented with doubt as to somebody's sex or gender. We need to do less segregating in youth sports and early education, to avoid these sorts of problems down the road.
I'm on my school's quizbowl team. We play against other teams to see who can answer questions pertaining to English, history, science, math, and other academic subjects the fastest. It's pretty fun, and I actually like getting a bit competitive every once in a while.
There's only one problem. I'm one of two girls out of all three teams (novice, junior varisity, and varsity)--that's 2 out of twenty-something. Neither of the girls are on the varsity team.
Today, I spoke to next year's varsity captain. I had to try and convince him that it was worth it to put in extra effort to recruit more girls, and talk to more than just the 60-or-so incoming freshmen we usually speak to (that's 60 out of about 2400 in our school, by the way). He didn't listen, but that's not quite what this rant is about.
It's about the fact that I even had to mention this point.
That I even had to make a special effort to talk to someone about this problem.
That I needed to actually argue for a balanced team.
It's been a while since women were forbidden from attending universities or joining certain professions because of their sex, but in our culture, women are still seen as being the superficial members of society, too concerned about their looks and appearance to play sports or be a scientist or answer questions about school subjects.
Is it just me? Or have other students noticed this kind of thing at their schools?
