South African gold medalist Caster Semenya, who was forced to undergo sex determination testing to continue her running career, has now received a feminine makeover.
After dealing with sex-determination testing, bigoted comments from other athletes, and her family's interrogation by the media, Semenya was determined to be biologically female.
Athleticism is stereotyped as a strictly male trait. The public's discomfort with female masculinity led to the expectation that as a woman, Semenya must compensate for her threatening athleticism with femininity. As Courtney said, "The public's reaction to her performance and body are flash points for our continued discomfort with admitting that the world does not come in such simple dichotomies as we safely like to think it does."
"You" magazine simply changed Semenya to fit the dichotomy. And at the end of the day, women must express femininity as seen on a magazine cover to gain true acceptance.
Related:
Sex-Determination Testing in Track and Field
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"Athleticism is stereotyped as a strictly male trait. The public's discomfort with female masculinity led to the expectation that as a woman, Semenya must compensate for her threatening athleticism with femininity."
yep, yep. I'm disappointed that it has come down to this. what a joke.
It's deeply sad that, even if there are not formal consequences for her career from all this nonsense, Caster Semenya now has to live with everything that has been said. We can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
At 18, she turned in the best time of the year (though people keep forgetting, well off the record), and blew out her opponents. She did nothing wrong. She trained hard, she performed well.
Then, for no good reason, at 18, she has the whole world trash her gender presentation on front pages and talk radio and the internet.
Maybe she always wanted a makeover and always wanted a more femme presentation when away from the track, or maybe she was perfectly happy with how she looked. We can't see inside her head and we'll never really know, and it's not our business anyway. In fact, we've (that's a great big worldwide collective "we") invaded her privacy quite enough. I just hope she can move past all the shit people talked about her, enjoy running, and maybe crack that 800 record. I'll be rooting for her.
Well said Thomas, well said.
Oh, now that she's wearing a necklace I can clearly she IS female. WTF?
This is sickening. The best part of the entire linked article is part of her quote: "God made me the way I am and I accept myself." If only others could as well.
I saw that one, too. How ironic. but seriously. I give her kudos for keeping her head up high. I would be so humiliated and never want to go out in public again if that was me.
That outfit is going to be difficult to run in...
What a shame that all this controversy has overshadowed her amazing athletic achievement.
That's what pisses me off the most about all this. This woman is a freaking champion! And the media would rather mock and harass her. Disgusting.
I feel so much more comfortable now that she looks like a lady... *phew*...
Because everyone knows ladies wear dresses and dangly jewelry and that they hate sports.
Oh shit... I'm wearing sweatpants and I'm watching ESPN. No dress, no jewelry, no fancy hairstyle AND sports?! Guess I'm a dude. Excuse me while I head to the doctor for some invasive and unnecessary gender testing.
I played girls softball in high school and college and the worst thing that you could be accused of then was being too masculine, i.e. a lesbian, or a "carpet-eater" as one of my teammates once put it. What was ironic was that she was not very "feminine" herself. I think there was a little pathological self-hatred there...
Are you fucking kidding me? After harassing/torturing/demeaning this woman, they toss on some makeup and some bangles and OH MY GOD SHE'S FABULOUS!!!! LET'S FORGET ABOUT THE HARASSMENT/TORTURE/DEMEANMENT (is that a word? Demeaning treatment?)
Fucking morons. As dcardona said, they put a necklace on her and she's suddenly a woman? What Semenya says about herself clearly doesn't matter. Apparently, she's not a woman until she dolls herself up enough for everyone's comfort. Fucking seriously.
I am so glad someone posted this! I saw this yesterday on the yahoo news page. One thing I wanted to point out about the article I read was this statement:
"Despite what you think about the whole situation, it's safe to say that this is the first time that Semenya has truly looked like an 18-year old woman."
WHAT? REALLY? I guess before she looked like a different aged woman...yeah I know that is not what they are meaning. It has nothing to do with age, but rather that she now looks "feminine". But I guess I am not feminine either, because I hate wearing dresses and I don't get manicures. But I do wear jewelery...so maybe I am. I am so confused please someone let me know what women are supposed to look like!
The whole article is her: http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Embattled-track-star-Caster-Semenya-gets-new-coa?urn=oly,187999
I like this part from the article:
She says she likes the look too. Semenya told the BBC:
"I'd like to dress up more often and wear dresses but I never get the chance.
I am who I am and I'm proud of myself."
Let's hope this is what she wants though.
Nothing Semenya has done in the past month has suggested that she likes to wear dresses, get manicures and let down her hair. After the controversy broke, she kept her cornrows, wore baggy clothes and pounded her chest in victory like a college football cornerback. When she returned to her hometown, she was dressed the same way. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. That seemed to be Semenya's natural inclination. This feels forced.
Hopefully I'm wrong. But if Semenya was pressured to do this to silence her critics, then this is a sad story rather than one of retribution. The opinions of a few jealous coaches shouldn't have an effect on how an 18-year old carries herself. If Semenya wants to wear dresses then she should. But if she wants to run around in track suits, what's the problem with that?
That's because the article was written by sports blogger Chris Chase, someone I loathe. He tries to make what seems like a nicely balanced article so people just glancing won't get upset. For a while he even sounds like he's on the right side. Hoping she's doing this all for her benefit, that she's happy and whatnot, but then he throws in comments like that all the time and I'm just left thinking WTF? Did you read any of his articles on Erin Andrews? Oh my god did he make me angry.
I wrote about this in the community blog along with how it reeks of colonialism-themes.
I think that the racialized aspect of this story is missing. You will note that she has been pictured wearing cornrows. Now with her hair done in a more traditionally Eurocentric style this supposedly constitutes femininity. To me it speaks to the devalued state of Black womanhood. There is hardly a Black woman that does not have memories of getting her hair braided at her mothers knee as a child. It is in fact only recently that Black men started wearing cornrows; this has been a traditionally female hairstyle.
I believe that it has been easier to reduce Caster in the first place because she is a Black woman. Whiteness has a history of masculinizing us for the purposes of exploitation and marginalization. You will note the Sapphire construction that has become very popular in discourse.
All that needs to be said is that Caster is a woman.
The biggest difference I see in the magazine cover is that Castor has a big ass smile on her face. All the pictures I have seen so far were of her on the track either running or concentrating. Smiles are as big a mark of femininity as dresses. I'm sure she smiled a few times on the track. I suspect that it was a concious decision to run the unsmiling photos.
This reminds me of the story of Susan Boyle and how she was "made over" after her appearance caused people to rethink assumptions about beauty and femininity.
OK I read those gender tests won't be back for two weeks.
What makes this case fishy to me is that track and field athletes progress up thru the ranks and when somebody like this comes from completely off the radar to dominant they're usually found sooner or years later to be dirty. I'm inclined to suspect HGH rather than gender.
I groaned when I saw this issue of You magazine on sale. You magazine is a rag, catering to the lowest common denominator. I long ago stopped reading it because I was disgusted at the narrow-minded attitudes they promote.
Unfortunately, it is a very popular rag and there are far too many people who agree with what they write and the slant they put on their stories. It probably won't occur to many You readers that a pretty dress, jewelry and a new hairstyle do not a woman make.
*sigh*
Renee mentioned Caster's cornrows being swapped for a more eurocentric style and I agree with her comments. It annoys me intensely that African hairstyles have to be explained and justified but Eurocentric hair (and hairstyles) is simply accepted without question.
As terrible as this is...
She still looks like a dude to me.
I thought it was so nice to see this girl showing the world how to just be yourself, no matter other people's comfort-zone-dictated preconceived ideas. I feel disappointed she's been "given" a makeover and suspect at least some foul play given her young age. However, if she did enjoy it, then good for her. Is it my imagination, or is her skin also a bit fairer on the magazine cover as compared to previous shots from the actual racetrack???