{"id":274480,"date":"2010-02-04T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rhrealitycheck.org\/blog\/2010\/02\/02\/running-like-a-girl-sexstereotyping-olympics"},"modified":"2010-02-03T21:46:09","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T02:46:09","slug":"running-like-a-girl-sex-stereotyping-in-the-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/274480","title":{"rendered":"Running Like A Girl: Sex-Stereotyping in the Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tOriginally posted on the Gender & Sexuality Law Blog<\/a>, Columbia School of Law.\n\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAs Mai
\nRatakonda recently noted<\/a>
\nlast Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee announced the\u00a0recommendations
\nof a panel of "experts"<\/a>\u00a0on
\nthe manner in which the Olympics should "handle" persons with "Disorders of
\nSexual Development." They concluded that the IOC should approach female
\nathletes whose sex has been questioned, treat them as having a medical
\ndisorder, and they will be referred to special clinics for diagnosis and
\ntreatment, or as they call it, "management." The recommendations address
\nOlympic athletes whose "true" sex is called into question because they deviate
\nfrom a socially determined female norm. The meeting of experts was convened by
\nthe IOC in response to the Caster Semenya case. (An earlier\u00a0blog post<\/a>\u00a0addressed Semenya.)\n<\/p>\n

\nThe
\nrecommendations raise a number of problems. First, it seems that for athletes
\nwho wish to compete in the female division and who have had their "sex"
\nchallenged, they will have to agree to examination and treatment in order to
\nremain eligible. "Those who agree to be treated will be permitted to
\nparticipate," said Dr. Maria New, an IOC hired panel participant, an expert on
\nsexual development disorders, and a controversial figure in the intersex world
\ninsofar as she has been a strong advocate for genital surgeries for babies born
\nwith "ambiguous genitalia."\n<\/p>\n

\n"Those who do not agree to be treated on a
\ncase-by-case basis will not be permitted" to compete. Dr. New suggests that the
\nbest first step in identifying and treating athletes of questionable sex is
\nthat "photographs of [those] athletes [be sent] to experts like her. If the
\nexpert thinks the athlete might have a sexual-development disorder, the expert
\nwould order further testing and suggest treatment."\n<\/p>\n

\nImagine,
\nfor a second, how this will work: a world-class athlete, such as Caster
\nSemenya, will have her female credentials questioned by another athlete —
\nlikely someone who just lost to the athlete whose female-ness is being
\nquestioned. That athlete will then have to remove her shorts, have her genitals
\nphotographed, and then have those photos sent to Dr. New for review. Applying
\nwhat seems like a "know it when you see it" standard of abnormality, Dr. New
\nmay then determine that the athlete be further tested and treated\/managed for
\nher "Disorders of Sexual Development" as a condition of further eligibility in
\nIOC-sanctioned competition. This new procedure creates a climate whereby female
\nathletes who run too fast, throw too far, or jump too high "for a woman" stand
\nlikely to have their sexual identity challenged, thereby exposing themselves to
\nthe humiliation of genital photography and the shameful suggestion that they
\nare freaks. Look what happened to Caster Semenya and\u00a0Santhi Soundarajan<\/a>\u00a0who endured a similar sexual
\ninquisition and attempted suicide as a result to know where this is leading.\n<\/p>\n

\nSecond, as
\nif the privacy and shaming of the IOC panel’s recommendations weren’t enough,
\nthis new approach to policing the boundaries of women’s athletics smacks of sex
\ndiscrimination. Many of the world’s top athletes have some physical
\n"endowments" that explain, at least in part, their advantage over competitors.
\nTake Michael Phelps, who won an amazing eight gold medals in the last Olympics.
\nSwimming fans are in awe of Phelps’ disproportionately large "wing span"
\n(basically, really long arms), the fact that he is double jointed, and has huge
\nfeet.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t"His size 14 feet reportedly bend 15 degrees farther at the ankle than
\n\tmost other swimmers, turning his feet into virtual flippers. This flexibility
\n\talso extends to his knees and elbows, possibly allowing him to get more out of
\n\teach stroke," wrote Scientific America in\u00a0a special story
\n\ton Phelps’ physical endowments<\/a>.\n\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nPhelps isn’t seen as having a joint
\nor foot "disorder." He isn’t forced to have pictures taken of his body that
\nwill be reviewed by medical experts who apply a loosey-goosey standard to
\nevaluate whether he needs treatment in order to make him more normal, and
\nthereby allow him to continue competing. No, he’s just built for his sport in
\nways that give him enormous advantages over the average person. We stand in awe
\nof him, not in judgment.\n<\/p>\n

\nOnly those
\nendowments that are regarded as sex-related trigger an investigation into
\nwhether a female athlete is eligible for competition in a women’s division. But
\nwho’s to decide which are and which are not "sex-related?" Consider Lance
\nArmstrong’s exceptionally large lung capacity and low heart rate which are
\nlooked to to account for his unbelievable success in biking (doping allegations
\naside). Not only are his physical advantages not treated as disqualifying, his
\nbody has been transformed into\u00a0a lesson plan<\/a>\u00a0for high school biology classes.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut
\nmaybe he should be referred to the sex police.\u00a0Research shows<\/a>\u00a0that females demonstrate a somewhat
\ndifferent and better pattern of cardiac adaptation to exercise than do men, and
\nas a result have better oxygen extraction by their working muscles due to greater
\ncapillarization and more mitochondria. So, in effect, Lance Armstrong’s body is
\nmore "feminized" as compared with the other male competitors. But you don’t see
\nhim getting called out for being insufficiently male and from having an unfair
\nadvantage over the other men in the Tour de France because his capacity to
\nprocess oxygen is more typical of female than male athletes, do you? His
\nendowments are not seen as sex-related, they’re just the envy of top cyclists.\n<\/p>\n

\nHmmm.\n<\/p>\n

\nSo too,
\nsmall male jockeys or petite male coxswains aren’t seen as cheaters (girly men
\ncompeting in male sports) in the same way that Semenya was. Yet their light,
\nlithe bodies are prized in their sports precisely because they are smaller than
\nthe average man. No sex police here.\n<\/p>\n

\nMen, it
\nseems, can compete under the influence of abnormal hormonal levels or other
\nbody functions so long as they use what "god gave them," but women, it seems,
\nmay not. As Alice Dreger\u00a0recently
\ncommented<\/a>\u00a0on the new
\nrecommendations:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n\tThat,
\n\tthen, raises the apparently unconsidered question of why athletes competing as
\n\twomen would be subject to such androgen-capping, while athletes competing as
\n\tmen are not (unless they dope). If we women naturally make all those same
\n\thormones — and we do — why do the guys get to keep all they naturally make, and
\n\twe don’t?\n\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Good question. And it
\nraises a serious suggestion of sex discrimination in athletics. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted on the Gender & Sexuality Law Blog, Columbia School of Law. As Mai Ratakonda recently noted last Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee announced the\u00a0recommendations of a panel of "experts"\u00a0on the manner in which the Olympics should "handle" persons with "Disorders of Sexual Development." They concluded that the IOC should approach female athletes whose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}