Caster Semenya

[shawnsyms]

Hair above her upper lip. The deep timbre of her voice. A muscular build. Her flatter-than average chest. A growing fixation on these corporeal cues is replacing the cheers that first met teenaged South African athlete Caster Semenya when she took the 800m gold medal at the world championship in Berlin last Wednesday

Comments

[jawnbc]

I was in the UK watching the IAAF worlds obsessively when all this came down. I dunno what the coverage was like here, but for the most part the European press (excluding the tabloids, which hardly qualify as journalists) handled this very well. Their main point was that the IAAF shouldn't've disclosed this until their investigations were complete and a final determination was made. In fact the British runner who was third behind her was so clearly compassionate when interviewed on the Beeb--as were the 3 former athletes commentating for the Beeb. So the Italian is hardly representative. in 2008 at the figure skating worlds Brian Joubert whinged about someone winning who didn't even attempt a quad jump. Whinging is whinging

[zurcherart]

You raise many good points. I wasn't aware about the larger context regarding the 18 month lead up to this issue. So thanks for providing that

[shawnsyms]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. If you wouldn't mind, I'd love it if you shared some of these comments, particularly as they concern race, over at the article itself.

[zurcherart]

I thought it was more appropriate to respond to John here, since we know each other from LiveJournal, but I'll see if I can still write something coherent over at the article itself.

[zurcherart]

Thanks for that.

[shawnsyms]

There are some comments on this blog entry that offer some really interesting perspectives on the question of race in the controversy surrounding Ms Semenya:

http://www.racialicious.com/2009/08/26/is-the-caster-semenya-sex-controversy-racist/

[pensivegargoyle]

She's a good reminder that gender is more of a continuum than most people are comfortable with.

[whitr]

You would think I would have something eloquent to say here being who I am and what I do... but I'm coming up blank at the moment. I'll ponder further.

[shawnsyms]

Would love to hear your thoughts when you're up for it, buddy. And long time no talk! I hope all's well with you. xo

[whitr]

*sigh

[bear_left]

Thanks for sharing this - I reposted it on my FB feed, and got a few interesting comments, including from one former student who ran track at UGA (if I remember correctly, he ran 500-1000m races), and responds from that experiential background.

[shawnsyms]

I appreciate that! You've been on my mind the past few days and I have meant to be in touch (I'm a bit slow-moving right now because I am fighting off a flu though!).