Caster Semenya: Man or Woman?

I’d like to begin this post with reminding us all how heated this discussion got in class.  I bravely participated a couple times and became a little frustrated myself.

Sloop, the author of this article, explained four logics on what the public’s ideology was on the situation. The four logics he used were: she was clearly born a girl and remained one, she was really a man, could neither be considered male or female, and lastly that Caster had his or her own individual identity. I believe Sloop does a great job on identifying these logics but the argument itself isn’t so black and white.

Because blog posting is all about being able to write your own opinion I will do just that. I would like to first start off with something that was mentioned in class and something I wanted to point out as well. GENDER AND SEX ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. (That wasn’t me yelling. Just trying to make a point.) The Olympic games are a huge deal; I mean come on it is a world competition! You don’t think they give physicals and individually check out all these athletes before allowing them to compete? Of course they do! I believe that Caster Semenya was born a woman. Yes, she has very “masculine” traits but that does not make her a man.

My second opinion on this gender identity issue is something that got me the most frustrated in class. I would really like to view myself as a feminist but I also identify myself as a woman, a proud, girly girl woman at that. Men and women are different, God made us physically and genetically different. Most men are stronger than women and that is just a cold hard fact. They were built that way by God (or whatever you would like to believe). I do think that men and women should be separated when it comes to many sporting events. It is fair that way. If Caster Semenya’s proven “sex” was male then he should have been racing with the men. Like wise if she was the “sex” of a woman. To argue the fact that if a male were to dominate his competition, we as a society wouldn’t question him to be a girl, just isn’t logical to me. Men and women are completely different kinds, you can’t sit here and call one gender better or worse, they are just different. I believe we should embrace these differences and focus on what makes us unique rather than equal.