Lisa Leslie - Jezebel

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coconanas
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
Is anyone going to gender test Usain Bolt to see if he's part alien because of his outstanding performance in shaving 0.1 sec off the world record?
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RainbowBrite promoted this comment Edited by coconanas at 08/24/09 9:24 PM coconanas was starred coconanas was unstarred

RainbowBrite
08/25/09

@coconanas: No but you can bet he's being drug tested like crazy.
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Pugnacioun
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
This is probably a really shallow comment (and I should probably stop and not write it after acknowledging that it's probably really shallow), but I'm actually really envious of Semenya's build. I've always wanted to have a powerful, muscular body but I hate exercise too much to accomplish much.
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utensil42
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
Okay, I have a naive question. Follow my logic here.

1. Semenya's performance allegedly improved rapidly, in a matter of weeks as most sources are reporting.
2. She has been tested for performance-enhancing drugs and passed.
3. Now, the IAAF is testing her "gender" for potential intersex conditions under the auspices that her rapid improvement is suspicious.
4. IAAF acknowledges that they do not think she is cheating.

Question: What intersex condition do they think she could have that has suddenly appeared at age 18 and made her Wonder Woman so quickly?

I don't understand how this is supposed to even work.
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Ms. Crankypants promoted this comment utensil42 was starred utensil42 was unstarred

Ms. Crankypants
08/24/09

@utensil42: Thank you!
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anteup
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
Fffff. I WISH I could put on some of that ~ugly muscle~. I got blessed with one of those curvy and will not put on aesthetically pleasing-muscle type builds. I'm 6' and my calves are friggin 13" around. SO TINY AND AWKWARD.
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Uncommon Whore promoted this comment Edited by anteup at 08/24/09 11:22 AM anteup was starred anteup was unstarred

Uncommon Whore
08/24/09

@anteup: I recommend running up hills! Move to San Francisco and they will bulk up a few inches, I promise. Totally realistic, no?
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fuzzylizardkitten
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
Do I think all the trashy gossip about Semenya looking like a man so she must be a man is wrong? Oh yes. But the initial decision to test her is more understandable to me the more I weigh the issue. In one of the earlier articles it referenced a competition rule that athletes must abide by the gender they were born into. Had I been competing alongside her I would have wondered as well (but definetally wouldn't have snarked like I've heard some others do). She has a very masculine physique, I think we can all agree. But I think most people can agree that female athletes can tend to look outside the cliche form of the feminine body...we've just been hearing from more of the idiots in the news and comments.

But, like others mentioned here, in sports with a history of cheating and drug enhancements, everyone suffers from being scrutinized now. If I ran incredible times compared to peers who were supposed to be the best of the best, someone will call me over for a drug screening if I looked feminine, or a gender/chromosome abnormality screening if I looked very masculine. And a screening will clear up any misconception if there is no wrongdoing, which I believe is the case with Semenya.

What goes wrong is when bigots carry stories like hers into international spotlight for dialogues on sports and genders but end up showing their nasty sexist backsides in the process.
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Cerridwen
08/24/09

@fuzzylizardkitten: I don't understand that rule you referenced, that "atheletes must abide by the gender they were born into." What about trans individuals? Those who were, in effect, born in the wrong body? Do they mean "sex" when they say "gender"? In which case, a trans person who is physically male but identified as a woman must compete as a man? And that's to say nothing of intersexed people...

I haz a confusion...
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noodleashy143
08/24/09

@Cerridwen: I think that's a huge part of this issue. The sport is divided by sex, but how are they defining sex? Do sexual organs define that? Probably not, otherwise this testing would be over pretty quickly by taking a peek down her pants. I'd imagine that they probably haven't had to many instances like this and therefore don't have any specific situations to handle it.

Also, I didn't realize until recently there was a difference between sex and gender, can someone explain? I'm assuming here that gender is what you identify with and sex is the chemical/physical stuff?
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RainbowBrite promoted this comment noodleashy143 was starred noodleashy143 was unstarred

RainbowBrite
08/24/09

@noodleashy143: Remember, sex organs are inside and outside the body, and they don't always match in terms of sex! A person's genitals on the outside can look female, even if a person is XY. Or what's going on outside the body could be indeterminate -- either a large clitoris or a small penis. So a peek in the pants isn't really going to determine someone's sex.
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RainbowBrite
08/24/09

@Cerridwen: I think most people are using "sex" and "gender" interchangeably here, even though many of us on Jez understand the difference. But yes, someone must compete in the SEX they are born into. If a person is born male, but has always FELT like a woman despite her male genetic, chromosomal and hormonal makeup, she cannot compete as a woman. That is only fair to the other women competing who do not have male hormones.
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Kali Mama
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
I was going to watch her race as inspiration and then I made the mistake of reading the youtube comments. We have a looong ass way to go.
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Jellocakes
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
Before the media storm blew up on this BBC sports interviewed one of the heads of the IAAF and asked why these tests were being done, the IAAF stated the primary reason was that she had till recently been running good but not spectacular times.

Then a few weeks ago she blew everyone out of the water & again at Berlin which raised suspicions of something going on, why the huge gap in performance till now ?

Coupled with her appearance, many athletes wondered if drug cheating was the cause or she had some unusual advantage were being whispered around so the IAAF responded to settle the matter.

The BBC did criticize the IAAF in the way it handled the announcement of calling her sexuality into question in public instead of being more discrete about it, no announcement should have been made unless she was found out to have an intersex condition.

Such conditions are not unheard of either in athletics over the years there have been a few. I do feel sorry for her is she is in the clear or simply didn't know of any condition is she had one. The IAAF was also wrong to drag this out into the public.
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sportz.star promoted this comment Jellocakes was starred Jellocakes was unstarred

sportz.star
08/24/09

@Jellocakes: Thanks for this info and clarification. I know many folks below are arguing that she's subjected to drug testing, which is fine, but so imperfect that it's very troubling. The best athletes in the world are years ahead of the testers. Whenever someone has a seemingly super-human level of improvement, red flags are raised.
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pmarble
08/24/09

@sportz.star: Couldn't it also be attributed to her maturing into her peak? She is very young, after all.
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sportz.star
08/24/09

@pmarble: That could be true -- but usual peak in running is mid-twenties (for shorter distances). Especially among sprinters. Often later. She's seemingly well outside the norm.
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nora charles
08/24/09

@Jellocakes: Her earlier times weren't even that "good," to be honest--they were mediocre for a runner at her level. She went from running those none-too-spectacular times to setting a world record in the span of a year--cutting off nine seconds off her personal best time. I think a lot of the posters here don't follow running, so they have no idea how unlikely that is. Once you're running at an elite level, that kind of improvement is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly rare. I can't think of another example of it happening. The only way it could happen is if you were being severely under-trained and had terrible form in the original events, and then had those things were corrected. And obviously, if you're running in elite events, the chances that you are being that under-trained and nobody has tried to fix your form are slim to none. The kind of gains she showed, in that short of a time period, are borderline impossible by training alone. It just doesn't happen.

That doesn't mean there's any proof that she's intersexed, of course, or that the officials are right to make their suspicions public. I don't know enough about that stuff to understand how it would even affect her performance in this way. It just means that no one should be surprised that this is being investigated from all possible angles--it's just so incredibly unlikely to happen from training alone.
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RainbowBrite promoted this comment nora charles was starred nora charles was unstarred

RainbowBrite
08/24/09

@nora charles: I saw an article about how ASA has hired a coach who admitted to being part of the East German doping scandal back in the 70s and 80s. Being intersex wouldn't explain running a 2:11.45 in July 08, a 2:04.23 in October 08, and then a 1:55.45 in August 09, but doping would. It'd also explain facial hair, a deep voice, and muscles that appear over-developed for a female 800m runner. I am not comfortable accusing her of doping, but those times, plus her secondary sex characteristics, are enough to warrant an inquiry into drugs and sex, IMO.

I agree, a lot of people here are not runners. She is incredibly muscular and has a radically different body than every other world-class 800m runner in that race. If she were running the 100m her body type probably wouldn't have raised eyebrows.
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WestMantooth
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
I hate to say it but having heard her speak, she does have a mannish voice. If you close your eyes, you would think she was a man. (And yes I do know women who have had deep voices but I was still able to tell) They still should have been careful with the telling the media about the testing.
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Meg
08/24/09

@WestMantooth: If you close your eyes and listen to me speak, I sound like a child. I assure you I am not.
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That_little_attention_whore
08/24/09

@WestMantooth: in some interviews after the fact, other female swimmers said the same thing about the east German swimmers in the 1980s. They were definitely women, and they were definitely doping, too.

Semenya's performance is suspicious, as others pointed out, because the improvement was both dramatic and sudden (whereas Usain Bolt was posting phenomenal times in the juniors, so his dominance wasn't surprising to people who follow track and field).

What I think is going on, in my conspiratorially-inclined mind, is that the IAAF suspects her of using some kind of drug, but her trainers are giving her something that their tests can't pick up (the dopers are always ahead of the tests anyway), so I think they are trying to get her or her coach to admit that the sudden improvement and bulking up was due to some kind of substance, just my $.02. I don't agree with what they are doing necessarily - I am just speculating as to what their motivation might be.
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That_little_attention_whore
08/24/09

@That_little_attention_whore: let me clarify - I understand, and approve of the IAAF trying to see if people are cheating, and trying to figure out ways to test people whereby the latest and greatest enhancements can't be picked up by the tests, but I disagree with the idea that publicly shaming an 18 year old girl about her gender is the right way to go about doing it.
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morninggloria
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
I can't tell you how many female mathletes I've encountered who really overdo the sexiness just to prove that despite their big bulging brains, they're still ladylike. It's my dream that one day, mathletic women won't feel like they need breast implants and sparkley pink calculators to fit in.
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lippybug
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
The issues is not whether we think she's pretty or not. The issue is that men and women compete separately because we acknowledge that men's bodies (especially those of top atheletes) are built differently than women and to compare them on the basis of physical strength, a women's body will not match up to a mans (again, I'm not saying that some women are stronger than some men - just that at the top echelon of sports men's bodies are stronger than womens - compare men's world's records in track and field are always faster than womens).

I think the confusion is whether we are allowing a person with a man's body to compete against women and is that fair. I've never thought for a minute it was whether she was pretty or acceptable. Its just a question on what is fair for a competition where we segregate by gender. I DO think that Semenya's body looks like a man's body. And if physiologically her body is more like a man's like a women's does she belong in the women's competition?
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cwisto moweina has got yer goat promoted this comment lippybug was starred lippybug was unstarred

a magician named gob
08/24/09

@lippybug: You're saying that Semenya's body looks like a man's body because she has too many muscles to be a woman and that is exactly the problem. She IS a WOMAN, even if she is more muscular than other women. She has trained to compete at the top-level of her sport and she is not a man. If we are going to segregate competition based on gender, we cannot decide that some women have done too much so they shouldn't be allowed to compete as women. Whether or not you or anyone else thinks she "looks like a man," she is not one. And neither she, nor any other woman who chooses to train hard and gain muscle, should be shamed for being "unfeminine" because they are good at what they do or don't fit into our perceptions of what men and women look like.
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sassy promoted this comment

lola_in_the_dark
08/24/09

@lippybug: Yes but I think the problem is that many people associate being pretty with being feminine. I think a lot of people are arguing that perhaps if she looked more like a beauty queen her gender wouldn't have been in question in the first place.
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ortolan
08/24/09

@a magician named gob: Clearly Semenya has been treated poorly. But people who say women in high-level sports are not allowed to have muscles have obviously not watched many women in high-level sports.
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RainbowBrite promoted this comment ortolan was starred ortolan was unstarred

RainbowBrite
08/24/09

@ortolan: Word. Veronica Campbell-Brown and Carmelita Jeter are totally jacked and no one doubts they're women. In fact, their bodies still look female despite bulging muscles and small breasts. They also look like girlie girls with their hair and grooming. Lauryn Williams comes to mind as a female athlete who is extremely muscular and doesn't present herself as "girlie", and yet no one has doubted her sex.
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CurtCole
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
I'm sick of everyone weighing in of if she is beautiful or not. It wouldn't matter if she looked like the wrong side of a camel, she's a runner. She runs. That is all that should matter.
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RainbowBrite
08/24/09

@CurtCole: I agree, about ALL female athletes. It really pisses me the fuck off to hear people talking about whether an athlete is hot or not. They're competing in a race or a sports match, not a fucking beauty pageant.
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Plum-Pie
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
This is similar to Nastia Liukin being cast as a 'bitch' because she doesn’t smile as much as Shawn Johnson. Speaking of whom, Johnson (with her normal academic workload and hobbies) is proof that the best person in a sport really can be much better than everyone else, naturally. I.e. We shouldn’t be doubting that Semyana can be 2 seconds faster than her nearest rival. Yes, I'm aware that I just compared her treatment to that of 2 white women, but the racial element to this is better commented on by someone else. (Suffice to say, it makes me sick.)The more crap I hear spoken about Semyana, the angrier I get.
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Edited by Plum-Pie at 08/24/09 10:08 AM Plum-Pie was starred Plum-Pie was unstarred

f_t_e
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
I am waiting for it to eventually come around to something as juvenile and hateful as "but her face is ugly and looks like a manface!" Oh wait, what's that you say? We're already there? SWEET!

And I think we need look no farther than the Williams sisters, who show up in the tabloids as having "body issues" which is the nice way of saying "gross!" about anyone whose body is slightly less than 'perfect.'
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musicpup
08/24/09

@f_t_e: I'm sure Fox News is on it as we speak.
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sportz.star
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
This will be unpopular.

I wholeheartedly agree that the impetus for the testing, the public explanation, and the explanations for why she is undergoing testing are unsupportable.

However, she is running many seconds faster than other women at the age of 18 in a sport where ultimate success rarely comes before one's mid-20s. She's so far superior in an age of designer eclectic drugs that enhance performance, that I agree that the IAAF has the right - particularly given its past problems with mass doping scandals - to investigate as it sees fit to ensure fairness of competition. Sports have broad ability to test or prosecute athletes even in the absence of a positive test.

Semenya's performances are amazing. She's sweeping the floor with her opponents. Unfortunately, we live in a day and age where that will raise serious scrutiny. More so if you're competing as a woman. More so if you don't look like the rest of your competition. More so if you're in a sport with a rich history of cheating.

I don't disagree that testing should occur. What I don't understand is what's the rule here? I know that women must compete against women, but I haven't seen anything that says what a woman is for the purpose of the IAAF.
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cwisto moweina has got yer goat
08/24/09

@sportz.star: I agree and I also think it doesn't have to be one or the other. There could be a need for testing and a sexist view of female athletes' bodies. The presence of the latter makes testing a bit suspect, but does not completely illegitimize it.
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Anna N.
08/24/09

@sportz.star: I don't think the IAAF has been very clear about what its standards for competing as a woman are -- the clearest thing I've read says that people who identify as women but have intersex conditions are allowed to compete as long as the condition doesn't give them "an unfair advantage." I'm not sure how they determine that -- and the IAAF may not be either. The other issue here is that gender testing isn't being applied equally -- rather than being random or across the board, basically it's only used when there's "suspicion." To my mind, this lets competitors determine when someone is tested. Drug testing doesn't work like that, and for good reason. I think this is revealing that gender testing in sports, if it's to continue, needs to be much more standardized.

A sidenote: Semenya was already tested for drugs and passed. I'm not sure if "not looking like the rest of your competition" should be grounds for extra scrutiny. We need a better system.
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Edited by Anna N. at 08/24/09 10:10 AM Anna N. was starred Anna N. was unstarred

Plum-Pie
08/24/09

@sportz.star: Lance Armstrong and Michael Phelps have been far ahead in their fields, without drugs. Of course, we should investigate (and ideally eradicate) drugs in sports, but the Semyana situation is not contributing to that.
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Zombies make the heart grow fonder
08/24/09

@Plum-Pie: Yes, but Armstrong underwent constant testing and scrutiny surrounding allegations of drug use. He subjected himself to extensive physical tests so they could discover "his secret" to why he is so good. He was never believed to be another sex though...
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MsChicklet
08/24/09

@sportz.star: I agree about the need to test for performance-enhancing drugs. She comes seemingly out of nowhere to give these amazing performances, eyebrows are going to be raised. Especially after the last 10 years and all the big-name athletes who have been found to have used performance-enhancing drugs -- Marion Jones, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez. Even after a decade-plus of clean drug tests, there are still whispers about Lance Armstrong. It's sad to say, but in this day and age, many of us see an amazing athletic performance and our first thought is, "Please don't flunk the drug test ... Please be clean."

But the questions and testing should be about performance, not looks and gender roles. I hope we can use this story to make the case that femininity isn't just "cute," it can be strong, it can be smart, it can be athletic, it can be artistic, it can be many things at once.
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schweppes
08/24/09

@Zombies make the heart grow fonder: I think that has a lot to do with the fact that female cyclists aren't faster than male cyclists.
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sportz.star
08/24/09

@Plum-Pie: I believe and always will believe that Lance Armstrong was the best athlete on an even playing field at the Tour. Michael Phelps' unusual physique -- torso that's exceedingly long compared to his legs, giving him monstrously long arms, has been analyzed ad nauseum.

I don't disagree that this is because she is a woman. Presumably the only "punishment" here could be to have her compete against men -- who are much faster. I just think that in the culture of sport and track, that the action is not so surprising or unfortunate. The method however, is.
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bluebears
08/24/09

@Anna N.: Yeah but, in fact, at least in the track and field world, competitors often play a huge role in who's singled out for drug testing. Rumors are spread like crazy in that community (which is small) and are spurred along most of the time by dissatisfied second placers. There are random drug tests for everyone but certain athletes get singled out and more aggressively targeted. It's just not a very fair or democratic organization.

plus, I think this just highlights the real problem, that the IAAF has absolutely no set rules in place to deal with people who are inter sex.
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Edited by bluebears at 08/24/09 10:26 AM bluebears was starred bluebears was unstarred

sportz.star
08/24/09

@MsChicklet: But I think the problem might be that the next frontier in doping is hormonal modification that wouldn't trigger a positive drug test but would dramatically alter a woman's physiology, allowing her to reach super-human levels of performance. The IAAF has the right to investigate. That they're going about it all wrong in terms of methods and PR is the primary problem I see.
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RainbowBrite
08/24/09

@Anna N.: I believe an "intersex condition" that does not give an unfair advantage would be Androgen Insensitivity Disorder, where a person is XY, but has secondary sex characteristics of a female because of an inability to use testosterone (or something like that - I'm not a doctor!) So in that sense, the person would look like a woman and would not get the benefit of male levels of testosterone, which are what make men faster and stronger than women on average.
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Roeroica
08/24/09

In reply to Semenya To Return To Hero's Welcome, But Female Athletes Still Expected To Be "Curvy"
This kind of criticism of somebody's body is disgusting. She looks beautiful, healthy, and strong. They cannot define beauty in one small box and expect everybody to conform to it. WTF is this: "We encourage women to be fit and strong, but not too fit, or too strong" ?
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NefariousNewt promoted this comment Roeroica was starred Roeroica was unstarred

NefariousNewt
08/24/09

@Roeroica: But that's exactly what everyone does. Beauty is only skin deep, but that's OK, because superficiality is the norm these days. I'm not saying we can't find women attractive, but we have to do it for more qualities than looks.
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RainbowBrite
08/24/09

@Roeroica: She's not being tested because she's "not beautiful". I agree -- athletes should be judged for their athletic achievements, not whether they're sexy or hot. There are other female athletes who are strong, muscular, and not "beautiful" according to society's narrow standards, and yet their sex is not being questioned.
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