Today’s New York Times sports page has an article explaining that female athletes must undergo examinations to prove they are women. This is something I find fascinating and honestly, fairly disturbing. Here’s why:
1) The article entitled, “A Lab is Set to Test the Gender of Some Female Athletes,” speaks volumes about how we think of sex and gender. In Women’s Studies 101, students usually learn that sex is the term used to describe biological differences between men and women and gender is used to describe the social constructions of gender; how we expect men and women to behave. It’s a pretty subtle difference and the article uses the terms incorrectly. It explains that many of the tests for female athletes focus on more biological diffences, such as the presence of X and Y chromosomes. I think this is interesting because it shows how gender and sex are so often collapsed into one term, revealing that it really is different to move beyond thinking of men and women as naturally occuring opposites. This is all very fem theory, I know. So, I’m moving on now.
2) It is horrifying to me that only FEMALE athletes are forced to undergo tests to prove they are women. By requiring tests only for women, it is as though the Olympics are saying that they cannot believe that women’s exceptional athletic triumphs could be the result of hard training and preparation. It’s like saying only a man could do that well, so step on up ladies and prove you are a woman. It also sends the message that there is no need to worry that women would pose as men because certainly a woman could never defeat men as a woman. This ignores much we know about women having advantages in terms of flexibility and endurance.
3) These tests are also wildly objectifying, reducing female athletes to their bodies. The article explains that women used to have to prove they were women by walking around naked in front of doctors. Now, they have to submit to chromosome tests, but is that really much better? Aren’t they still saying that women are always going to be limited or pigeonholed based on sex characteristics?
4) The article also raises some interesting epistemological questions about how we know and understand gender. Testing female athletes by examining their bodies and their chromosomes suggests we can only know that people are men and women by considering their gentialia, secondary sex characteristics, and genetics. I’m reading a really intellectually engaging book right now by Julia Serano that talks a lot about her experiences as a transwoman and really questions how much those characteristics actually do define gender. So, can we really determine sex and gender just by looking at bodies? I’m not sure of the answer, but I think it is a fascinating question. Towards the end of the article the Times briefly gets into this issue which makes me happy.
5) Not to be too academic about this whole issue of testing Olympic athletes, but at the end of the day, why do we care so much about policing athletes’ sex and gender? Is it really that being male is seen as the equivalent of being a performance-enhancing drug? If so, why isn’t being female ever seen as an advantage? Why is it we insist on seeing gender as strictly either/or? In my mind, the whole issue points to the fact that society has a lot at stake in preserving the idea that men are better, faster, stronger, and the idea that women will never be able to seen as equals on the track, in the pool, or on the field. Certainly makes me think that female athletes still have a ways to go in order to get some respect.
