Feminism

When Caster Semenya races, people talk. Sometimes in support of her, but very often it's the opposite, sadly enough. Lately, this latter sort (or something very close to it) has been coming from her sister athletes, that is, her competitors, many of whom think it unfair that they should have to race against her.

But let's forget, for a moment, Semenya. Rather, let's focus on the ignorant, gender-abasing obsession with a "male biology" that supposedly confers unfair, insuperable athletic advantage, here in particular the hormone testosterone:

"We have levels that we are not allowed to test over, so even if she’s a female, she’s on the very fringe of the normal female athlete biological composition from what I understand in terms of hormone testing," Cummins [Diane Cummins, who finished eighth in Berlin] said. "So from that perspective I think most of us sort of just feel like literally we are running against a man because what we know to be female is a certain testosterone level. And if that isn't the case, they need to change everything."

The first and most obvious problem with such thinking: There is no certain (precisely defined) testosterone level for females! Testosterone, the so-called male hormone which nearly all women have in their bodies, can be found in widely varying amounts among women, with some women having levels well into the range generally considered "male".

What is more, even a baseline testosterone level for individuals is hard to come by. Monitor someone's testosterone and you'll find that it changes constantly, responding to all manner of environmental factors, some seemingly random, others quite predictable. Strength training, for instance, increases testosterone naturally, only women have to work just a little harder and longer to get the benefit. Sex (# 8), too, raises testosterone levels. (Should female track athletes with already "high" levels abstain from sex before meets?)

Research the subjects of steroid-, hormone-, and gender-testing for a time and you see how silly and hurtful the effort to make sport perfectly "fair" has become. Anything beyond the most basic of tests is in fact pointless and counterproductive. The witch-hunt has to end sometime.

Seven-time Olympic medalist Amanda Beard returns to competitive swimming this week, and along with that naturally comes a return to celebrity life, in not entirely predictable ways, as it turns out.

For instance, the New York Times recently ran a profile of Beard, one especially noteworthy because in it she reveals a past struggle with self-injury (i.e., deliberately cutting herself). It's good Beard draws attention to what is a serious, often shrouded problem, though likely better without so much attendant pop psychology—self-injury is rather more complicated and physiological than that.

And something else caught my attention, this time more by accident. Looking as I often do at the news ticker to the left, I saw a headline titled "The 20 Skankiest Women in Sports." More fine Internet "journalism," no doubt, but intriguing enough that I took the bait. I found nothing that was terribly surprising—mostly women who date or have dated one or more male athletes—that is, until I got to the list's headliner: Amanda Beard. And why is Beard there? Because she posed in Playboy, awful crime that it is, and for the "wrong" reason.

More evidence that female athletes, like most women really, seldom get a break. Always there is someone—be it prude or misogynist—waiting to pass harsh judgment.

So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.¹

I'm guessing that some of you, maybe even most of you, don't know that Adam had a wife before Eve. Her name is Lilith. Unlike Eve, though, Lilith was created the same time Adam was, and in the same fashion.

Except there was a problem; matchmaking can be a dicey business, even for a god. Lilith refused to give up equal status, refused to subdue herself to Adam. She said to Adam, "I will not lie below," and he said, "I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one." Lilith responded, "We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth."

They couldn't reach agreement in this, and so Lilith went away to live alone. But as has happened to many a strong woman since then, Lilith was demonized in the press, so to speak, except quite literally in her case. Myth and folklore since that time, often refracted through patriarchal eyes, has made her into an arch-demon responsible for infant deaths. But isn't she in fact the first heroine?

Lilith's story continues to be a cultural presence down to present-day. Now it is re-imagined in a new web series called Soul Fire Rising. My interest in Soul Fire Rising stirred when I learned that Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, often mentioned to play Wonder Woman (practically a no-brainer if you ask me), would be starring. I had been keeping an eye on the series since, but no O'Keefe and it seemed rather aimless at times. But that all changed recently with Episode 5. The star takes the stage, and it now looks as though things will be picking up—if not outright rocking.

¹ From the TNIV Bible; anyone wanting to scrutinize translations should visit here and here.

I've always admired Jenny Thompson. It could probably go without saying that she is one of the greatest female athletes ever. But Thompson—a bright, independent-thinking woman—also helped cultivate a new archetype for the 21st-century athletic woman; for example, when she challenged male chauvinists and priggish faux feminists alike with a seminude Sports Illustrated photo. Her response to her critics merits repeating: "I think that women have made great strides in the world of athletics and showing bodies -- the essential element in athletics -- is part of that. It's not about sex, it's about strength. Both physical and mental."

And though her Olympic days are behind her, she is still that same strong, resolute woman today—something two thugs learned by experience last week:

After much bumbling, the IAAF has cleared Caster Semenya to compete again. I'm happy for Semenya, and slightly hopeful that the lesson has been learned so that no one else has to go through such tribulation.

I never thought I'd be saying this, but apparently it is fashion week at the Athletic Women Blog (not by choice or plan, mind you). Today's post is the result of DC Comics' announcement this week that it is giving Wonder Woman a makeover (see right). Reaction to this news, much of it negative, isn't hard to find, naturally. But the timing and the nature of the makeover have also led some to speculate about what might be planned for the forthcoming movie.

I have mixed feelings about the new look myself. The desire to update her look, to do away with the bustier and star-spangled panties, I completely understand. But to my mind this overreaches. The "urban" look for starters. Is there no room left for the simply mythic?

And the jacket. Well, that just has to go. In an effort, I can only guess, to de-sexualize Wonder Woman, they now have her covered too much. Muscle represents power, not masculine power but power alone, and Wonder Woman should be allowed to flex hers once in a while too.



Enough of my opining, though. What do you think of the new look? Leave a comment or a vote.

Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in all federally-funded education programs, and athletics programs signally, was enacted 28 38 years ago today. Never without its naysayers, Title IX has despite them been an unmitigated success. Though not the final answer to gender equality in sports—something that can't be won by mere edict—Title IX opened a path to opportunities previously denied to athletic girls.

Nothing serves better to get across the transcendent difference opportunity makes than a real-life success story. And to that end, today I offer one furnished by the California Women's Law Center:

I've grown tired of a certain type of commercial, practically unavoidable nowadays, for home security systems. You know the story: a woman, home by herself or alone with children; a man, usually a stalker or a crazy ex; he smashes a window or kicks open a door; the woman screams; the alarm sounds; now another man, this one sane and professional, an employee with the security outfit, calls to check on her—help is on the way.

Not to make light of a serious topic, but must woman always be shown the helpless victim? Always at the mercy of some man—attacker or defender—for her safety? Can't producers of films, television series, commercials imagine life any other way, indeed, as it really is?

For it isn't that way in real life. A woman's safety is her own province, whether she likes it or not, and something for which she is well-equipped; and the athletic woman, abundantly so.

In point of fact, the would-be attacker in the Cincinnati area who recently found out the hard way:

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I learned that local television news hardly covers women's athletics.

But of course I jest. This I already knew—sans 20-year study and all.

I must confess, however, to being caught unawares by one conclusion:

"The peak was in 1999," said [Cheryl Cooky, assistant professor of health and kinesiology and women's studies at Purdue University]. "The local affiliates covered almost nine percent and that's gone down now to 1.6 percent in 2009."

I was not expecting a trend so steep in the wrong direction; a little disheartening to say the least.

By giving young women many more opportunities to compete in athletics Title IX made possible the awe-inspiring female athletes we see today. I am singularly grateful for that.

Never far from it, Title IX was again in the news this week when the Obama administration, of course not without fanfare, announced that it was revising (or re-revising) the rules of compliance for colleges.

I am not an expert on Title IX arcana, and have no desire to be, but ever the chronicler of politicians' capers, I can say without risking much that the move was made with political calculations in mind. The reform actually goes against the advice of the bipartisan United States Commission on Civil Rights, and is probably a political stunt more than anything else. Obama and his minions know that he needs his base intact when angry white men turn out en masse this November, if he is to keep Congress anyway.

Is the reform, then, itself wrong-headed? I don't think so, but I don't know enough about it to be counted on to say. But it is odd, I think, that the change goes against the recommendations of the USCCR. And at the Sports Economist I found another option, seemingly ignored altogether, which again made me think. Then there was the infernal logic of the Cato Institute.

I really couldn't care less about men's sports, collegiate or otherwise, and I'm always skeptical of claims suggesting that opportunities are being "stolen" from men and handed to women. Nonetheless, I do care about fairness, individual rights, rule of law—the things that make our society at least marginally better than a banana republic.

Title IX has clearly done much good. But that doesn't mean it's only benign. The handiwork of politicians rarely is (and the Law of Unintended Consequences usually has its say if nothing else). Hence Title IX supporters, and here I count myself, should always be mindful of its potential flaws.

Finally, I'll caution once more against thinking that female athletes can gain equal status simply by fiat. That must be earned in gyms and on playing fields.




(Umm, did I miss something?)

I rarely find much sound thinking in the writings of an avowed Marxist, but "Let Caster Semenya Run!" by Dave Zirin and Sherry Wolf actually contains snippets of clarity, as here:

What is really at stake here, aside from the persecution of a young athlete? Lurking beneath the salacious coverage is the sports world's underlying ethic--women are inferior to men.

The notion that there is an enormous physical gulf between men and women's athletic abilities is rarely questioned. No male athletes are tested to see if they are intersex because maleness is considered the physical gold standard against which women must be judged. Silly details like what happens when attempts are made at leveling the playing field between the sexes are ignored. For example, the 1988 Olympic record in the women's 400-meter freestyle swim would have beaten all men's times before the 1972 Olympics. In cross-country skiing, where endurance, strength and agility are key, the women's Olympic record of the fifteen-kilometer race in 1994 would have beaten all men's before 1992. In the thirty-kilometer race, the women's Olympic time in 1992 would have beaten all men's times in previous 30-kilometer races, according to the Women's Sports Foundation.

And perhaps this is also the case, once or twice anyway, in Wolf's book.

Still, the cognitive dissonance one experiences when even for a moment considering that communist thought might be the place from which human rights will spring is too much to endure. There are philosophies, nay organizations, much better suited to bring about the changes that Wolf allegedly champions.

Thus far Brittney Griner has been the unarguable star of this year's NCAA basketball tournament—men's side included—and she took things a notch further last night when she pulled her Baylor Bears through to an upset victory over Duke. Next up for Griner and Baylor: a Final Four appearance and probable showdown with undefeated UConn. (I for one didn't disregard the Bears; still, last night they exceeded my fairly high expectations.)

Only in her first year, Griner has captured media attention and forced basketball fans of all creeds to note the women's game. Her promise, however, is so much more.

Like any great athlete, Griner is a force of nature, impossible to resist; for great athletes generally do not plead for attention, they command it. But here something rather less banal is being glimpsed: an expression of female power.

So it is, at least to a degree, for many of us; namely, those who deem sports to be something more than mere priapic ritual.

Now please excuse me while I work on my bracket.

The inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300 will mark several firsts, mainly of interest only to avid Indy-race fans, but one in particular grabbed my attention: this will be the first time that four women have started an IndyCar race.

Methinks IndyCar is entitled to a little self-praise:

"This is really fantastic for our sport," said Terry Angstadt, president of the series' commercial division. "Diversity is actually one of the attributes of the Izod IndyCar Series. Racing is the only sport where female athletes compete in absolutely the same field as the men, they race on exactly the same tracks, the same cars."

Now we must work so that this parity is true for all sports, for only then will female athletes no longer be undervalued.

Today, International Women's Day, we honor women—something we should in fact do every day, without prodding.

Still, it's nice to have a special day to celebrate women. I was pleased to find this beautiful tribute created for the occasion: Women of the World ~ Divine Goddesses: