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I was reading through the Feministing blog a couple days ago and came across this (http://www.feministing.com/archives/017626.html) story about Caster Semenya. If you aren't already familiar with this controversy, she is a South African runner who had to prove that she is actually female by undergoing "sex-determination" tests in order to keep competing as a woman. It seems at the end of all that, she additionally had to (not really, but still did) have a makeover to prove her femininity as well. A subtitle on the magazine cover reads "We turn SA's power girl into a glamour girl--and she loves it!" as if this were the only way for her to mend her relationship with the public, by conforming to their expectations of what it is to be female and appearing publicly in something other than her running clothes.

She made some statements about not being bothered by the public outcry against her, but you can't always believe what you read, right? It's hard to say how she actually felt--she's only 18 and has probably dedicated most of her life to running if she is the 800m world champion. It's disturbing to read a story like this, and I think it's a good example of how the categories that govern our lives are potentially very hurtful to anyone in any walk of life. We have these ideas of positive and negative drilled into our minds based around what is considered to be "normal" and once one falls out of line with that normalcy, they are shunned unless they fight to justify their differences (or just give in and conform). Why can't Caster Semenya just be a gifted athlete? Why does being a gifted athlete have to imply a male trait? If we didn't have these categories, or even normalcies within these categories, or athleticism wouldn't have been questioned. Likely, she would have been a dedicated runner that worked her body to perform efficiently the way she needs it to on the racing track.

In class today I mentioned that when there are so many different possibilities of "brain-body combinations" (as Roughgarden says on page 240), it is hurtful when there is only one or two that are considered normal and the rest are supposedly abnormal. Positive and negative ways to label people result from this mode of thinking. If we didn't have positive/negative (good/bad, normal/abnormal) implications of categories and types, we could continue to use categories in the more productive ways that have developed (like preserving experiences and histories of different groups of people). Then maybe no one would have to "prove" their personal identity to the rest of the world.

And wow, a follow-up if anyone is interested: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/09/10/2009-09-10_caster_semenya_.html