Jezebel 
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New York, 7:53 PM
Sat Nov 28
24 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/31/09
09/03/09
08/31/09
But I am really offended by the idea that I should care what eyeliner competitive female surfers wear. No one expects me to care how Tom Brady accentuates his shoulders in his fashion choices.
09/01/09
What bothers me is when commentators say things like, "She must be thinking about her little girl right now" or "She's doing this for moms everywhere!" There's this weird assumption that athletes who are also mothers are driven by their children, whereas nobody ever says that about male athletes who are also fathers. It's just treated in a way that's really different.
08/31/09
For the last time, the IAAF did not request that she be tested solely because she "looks like a man," although she does, undeniably.
The sex identification test -- a battery of examinations -- was requested after several red flags:
Well before she competed in Berlin, her testosterone test showed that she had three times the normal level of testosterone in her system. She also showed a highly unusual degree of improvement in a very short time. There also was at least one protest pursuant to the IAAF's rules, which originated in her native South Africa.
09/03/09
Problem is, most of the dopers are ahead of the tests. Semenya, from what I heard, passed her drug test. So did Armstrong, Bolt, and Phelps. Are they juicin' it up? I don't know - if we keep their old pee in a fridge somewhere, maybe ten years from now we can test it and find out. Today, we give them the benefit of the doubt, since they made it through all the tests their respective sports use, but in reality, we can't know, because the testing can't keep up with the cheating. Sad but true.
The IAAF officials know this - they realize that they can't pick up all the new doping with the current tests - and another commenter mentioned use of testosterone directly in doping, so this may be another way of determining whether her newly-improved times were a natural miracle, or a result of more nefarious behavior.
08/31/09
Even if we remove or even out aspects between the sexes that are purely constructed (like say, women no longer feeling like they need to wear makeup while competing or men wearing similarly skimpy bathing suits), sex can and still be marketed. Just because now say, Maria Sharapova is wearing baggy shorts and a polo shirt while competing doesn't make her tennis-toned body less spectacular than it was when she was wearing skirts.
08/31/09
08/31/09
[deadspin.com]
08/31/09
But, the same happens in men's sports. Matt Leinert was/is talented, but he's not a top NFL QB, but he has endorsement deals tied to his looks, not his success on the field thus far.
In marginal sports -- that don't have big audiences (like surfing) -- athletes often have to take every possible advantage. The tough part is that more men than women watch more sports. It's a fact. What it has been historically driven by is generally irrelevant to the marketers. They want the male audience. The other thing is that pretty things -- good looking women -- draws a female audience as well. While maybe not as much as we used to, women buy glossy magazines with pretty people and pretty clothes inside because we (collectively and stereotypically) like pretty things. Why not pretty athletes?
Personally, I'd rather watch Tom Brady in spandex than any member of the Pats offensive line, because he's sexier. Why does Brady get a pass (heh) for trading on his looks but Danica Patrick does not? Or these surfer girls? I don't think it should be the only thing that sells female athletes to the world, but it certainly is one of the things.
08/31/09
08/31/09
Sure, when women want to compete with men, without restriction. When the women in the WNBA want to have to compete with the men in the NBA, then we can ditch the adjective "women's" in "women's athletics".
When women golfers want to compete with men golfers (where the highest average drive for women doesnt' even hit the lowest average drive for men).
When women swimmers want to compete with men swimmers (where men swim as much as 5% faster based on current records).
It's not -wrong- to admit that women have differences from men. It doesn't make female athletes somehow worse athletes than male athletes. It just acknowledges that our bodies are built differently from each other in a manner that is reliably determined by our gender. It's no more insulting than saying that heavyweight male MMA fighters shouldn't be put up against welterweight fighters.
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
If so, I think again, that's just not helpful (or even meaningful). It relies on the assumption that there's nothing different being done by the male/female.
In fact, it's quite different. As I note, in every sport I can find data on, the scores achieved by women are significantly lower than men (in my original post, I give the examples of golf drives and swimming records, etc.). It is simple reality that the women are not competing at the same level as the men.
The modifier "female" then correctly notes that they're engaging in a different activity, the same way "professional" or "amateur" do. I'm an -amateur- artist; this doesn't mean that I'm an "oddball" or somehow not an artist, it just means that it's more correct to denote me as an amateur since the assumption when you hear "artist" is that someone is a professional.
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
There is no reason whatsoever to think a female doctor is any less competant than a male doctor. The same is true for all non-physical fields (e.g. science, education, politics, etc.). But when we talk about their physical abilities (emergency response staff, sports, certain military duties) then it's entirely valid to distinguish between the genders.
08/31/09
Spin your point around: what could happen, hypothetically, that would constitute mentioning a man's gender in sports? It's not like there's a group that performs above men due to intrinsic physical differences. If "female athletes" were just athletes, then "male athletes" would be referred to, because they're playing on a different field (metaphorically and literally).
08/31/09
The fact that she can't play the game with professional men doesn't mean she's bad at her sport. Obviously she is an excellent player in the WNBA. But that's just it: her sports career is played in a different league, with different standards, than the men in the NBA.
08/31/09
I don't know much about surfing, but it doesn't at first glance strike me as a sport where men's and women's performances should be different (perhaps someone with a better idea of the sport could weigh in).
There is one really obvious sport where gender shouldn't be an issue- race car driving. Yet, there has been considerable objections to female drivers competing against men. Michelle Wei raised similar objections when she played PGA golf- he isn't up to par with the men, but the fact remains that even when women are competitive, men don't want them on the field.
It does make sense to separate men and women based on size and strength in most sports. But that doesn't mean that the way they are treated by the media should be radically different.
I don't think anyone has even suggested combining the NBA and the WNBA. The issue is, why does Sheryl Swopes have to be referred to as a female basketball player so often? She has an obviously female name, competitive basketball is not co-ed. Her vagina is already implied, we don't need the female part of female basketball players.
08/31/09
No, I don't believe that is that only subtext in sports columns, just the most muckraking one.
Besides, the female runner showed elevated levels of testosterone, which is an indicator of STEROID USE. Why is this being neglected on this site? The drug use issue has nothing to do with identity.
'Roid usage makes women have physical characteristics more readily identified as manly. That's not prejudice to point that out in the context of trying to ascertain steroid usage.
08/31/09
From the first, Jezebel has pushed a particular narrative that involves anointing Caster Semenya as the Joan of Arc martyrised for all the sexism that women athletes face.
Not a single writer has seemed capable of grasping the complexities of the case. Those would include things like due process based on the presiding authority's rules and implications for women's sports if a challenge like this were ignored.
They don't seem to understand that institutions have rules and there were abundant reasons to enforce the rule in regard to sex testing in this case.
08/31/09
08/31/09
I find articles like this far from feminist; they're anti-feminist. You're just looking to complain about anything that refers to women as different from men, even when those differences are inalienable and unavoidable. Until men can physically carry children, women are going to have to accept that their life will include the question "do you get pregnant or not" while men's lives won't. By pretending that it's somehow insulting or anti-woman to acknowledge this fact, you're just making it harder for everyone to talk about feminism and misogyny in general.
You complain that for these women to sell, they have to be sexy, but how is this different from men? Their sexiness is a side effect of their fitness.
Finally, as for the "mannish" questions, such as Caster Semenya, those miss the point too. Until somehow women are biologically just as strong as men, then any woman who appears to actually be a man will be a threat to women's atheletics. If you're actually a woman, of course you'd be upset about a man pretending to be a man in order to compete at an easier level. It doesn't mean Caster is a woman - I obviously don't know any more than you do - but it does mean that it's a legitimate question.
Think about it this way: if Caster is indeed a male (or even non-XY female), how are you going to react? Are you going to admit honestly that she has a biological advantage that is outside the limits of "women's atheletics"? Or are you going to pretend that your defiminition of female is more valid that anyone else's?
08/31/09
Male athletes, with some exceptions, recieve endorsements based on their abilities. Roger Federer's endorsements come from his greatness. Why is Anna Kournikova one of the best known female tennis players? Because she's so talented?
And the Caster Semenya questions are disturbing on a whole other level. She was forced to undergo genetic testing simply because people said she LOOKED like a man. No one said "I saw her in the shower and saw her penis." No one said "her birth certificate says she's male." People said "she looks more muscular than the rest of us and doesn't wear dresses or makeup, so she must be a boy."
This is certainly a femenist issue.
08/31/09
You really don't see the difference between the Williams sisters being relegated to crappier courts at Wimbledon because they're not attractive enough – too manly, in some people's eyes, despite the advantage their physiques may give them when it comes to, you know, actually excelling in their sport – and people commenting on Nadal's hot biceps?
08/31/09
Your comment about "women get those questions [about balancing parenting] constantly" is missing the point entirely. Biologically, women are literally built to carry and nurse women, while men aren't. Studies confirm that among other things, children who don't breastfeed are at dramatic disadvantage to those who did, which means that a responsible mother should (if she is capable) at least pump for months following childbirth. This means that she needs to spend about 9.5 months literally carrying the child, and then spend months afterward pausing throughout the day to pump, etc.
You don't think there's enough of a difference there? Even the most caring, eager father simply cannot replace the mother in that regard. He cannot carry the child, nor nurse. A woman will have to, without fail, balance those requirements against whatever else she wants in her life. A man will not, without fail, have to make the same balancing act.
It's not sexist; it's just reality (however unfair that is).
As for endorsements, I think you're frankly just wrong. How many ugly atheletes do you see in major add campaigns, male or female? Phelps is the only ready example I can think of, and plenty of people view him as a sex symbol anyway.
Finally, re: Caster, you're missing the point entirely here. The allegation isn't that she has a penis, because among other things she could be XXY (and have purely female secondary sexual characteristics). The allegation is that she's not an XX female. This might mean she's XXY, that she's XY, etc.
Her features are well outside the norm for female physical characteristics. She may merely be an outlier (and, for her sake, I hope she is), i.e. just a manly woman. Or, she may be a fraud (i.e. know she's not XX). Or, finally, she might be unaware that she's playing an unfair genetic hand (i.e. not know she's XXY). If she's not XX, then she's not competing fairly with all the women, and they rightfully can complain.
08/31/09
You don't think beautiful men in sports are treated better? That they get better endorsements, photo shoots in magazines, publicity, etc.? Come on, you know they do.
I'll concede that there is still some asymmetry, but I think it's a matter of degree, and it's far narrower than you're describing.
If I'm promoting a sporting event, I want to figure out what my customers want. If they want the best athletes, regardless of appearance then I'll lay out my schedule differently than if they want the prettiest. That's not sexist, it's just commerce.
07/02/09
07/02/09
07/02/09
07/02/09
07/02/09
03/14/09
03/13/09
And why is this any of our business??
On a side note, if she's still playing she deserves a medal for most ambitious pregnant woman ever. I can only get to the second floor of my house like once a day, I cannot imagine being asked to run.
03/13/09
03/13/09
03/13/09
Brynn was like a freshman when she and Leinart broke up and she was pregnant. It is one of those cases where I feel like showing how she is doing okay now makes it seem as though getting pregnant while on a basketball scholarship was something she was thrilled about and planned. Even that article has this whole condescending "I am okay now, and can't imagine my life without Cole" attitude as if they expect her to come out and say "yeah no, this was a huge mistake I wish had never happened".
Yeah, I am glad she is making things work but I don't think we need to make it look like having a baby is cool and easy.