Misgendering Culture

We live in a culture where being a female athlete and being feminine do not coexist in the eyes of society.  As a female athlete myself I find this extremely disrespectful and demeaning.  Like any other female athlete, I have gotten my fair share of people trying to get into my head by making personal attacks at you, or other people say rude things for no reason.  I was reminded of these emotions after reading the Caster Semenya article.  After blowing out her competition, and having “masculine” features, questions were raised about her gender.  I find this absolutely awful that the media treated her as an object to be tested and talked about, rather than the stellar female athlete she was.  It made me angry for many reasons; one being this is not the first time the media has done this to a female athlete.  On top of that, you never hear the media discussing a male athlete who did not do well, and accuse them of being a girl?  It does not seem fair.  Another incident that pertains to current events is the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Brittney Griner is a phenomenal basketball player at Baylor.  She is 6’8, can dunk, and has been noted for her “androgynous” looks and happens to have a deep voice.  For the past couple of years, she has received a lot of media attention for this and it is absolutely terrible.  Not only do I feel bad for this girl and the amount of awful things being said about her, but also it draws attention to how we as a society sexualize female athletes.  And we are continuously pressuring female athletes to somehow find be able to be sexy and feminine, but also successful and athletic.  And we look down upon flaunting any sort of “masculinity.”  I think that slowly the times are changing, but calling media attention to things like these examples are not only unnecessary but also deflating to these girls’ self esteem.