Jezebel 
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New York, 1:47 AM
Fri Nov 13
67 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/02/09
09/02/09
Therefore, in response, I demand a genetic test of Usain Bolt to prove he doesn't have ladyparts. I chose to believe his awesomeness is because he's a girl. Michael Phelps, too.
09/02/09
Moreover, of course this is about performance, not appearance. Why should the other competitors care if a male-looking "female" is competiting but failing? You only care about people cheating when they win, for the same reason. If they're losing, they're not hurting anyone.
09/02/09
Santhi Soundarajan sounds like an amazing woman, and I'm really glad that she's doing something positive for future runners.
09/02/09
09/02/09
09/02/09
09/02/09
[sportales.com]
09/02/09
09/02/09
I don't see that as an ideal solution, either. And to be honest, I can't really think of a solution that doesn't put somebody at an unfair advantage.
09/02/09
09/02/09
Here's an awesome commentary on Caster Semenya: [sports.espn.go.com]
From the article by Mary Buckheit, which says it better than I can:
"But like so many other female athletes, her athletic prowess and physical appearance have triggered a barrage of personal questions that male athletes don't have to deal with.
Shaquille O'Neal is a veritable giant, genetically unlike almost any man we know, but we don't ask if he's human. Instead, we call him an athletic freak. A superman. Michael Phelps' torso-to-leg proportions, combined with his large paddle-like hands, make him a marine machine. Yet we call it a gift, not a laughable genetic blunder. Jockeys with 27-inch waists and small shoulders might lack the physical stature we've come to expect of men. Still, we don't call them womanly. We deem them built to race horses.
There's an undeniable double standard at work in sports. As long as women have competed (and as long as evolving attire has allowed us to see their bodies), people have depreciated and humiliated some of the best female athletes by calling them manly. Their enigmatic strength and athleticism is countered with derisive criticism and gender judgments. Society wants women to be toned, not muscular. That's weird. It hopes women are athletic, but not too competitive.
[...] What if we assume Semenya is telling the truth? (As we should.) What if she is just an 18-year-old South African woman? What if she's not a cheater? What if she's not on the juice? What if she's just a remarkable athlete?
There are so many things to consider in these sensitive situations. The first is that we're not asking someone to prove that his or her urine and blood are clean. We're asking someone -- today, a South African teenager -- to justify what we've been conditioned to consider male or masculine. We're asking her for an alibi for her inexplicable athleticism."
09/02/09
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09/02/09
09/02/09
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