(Untitled)

[mal1]

It's fascinating to watch the stuffed shirts of the international athletics organisations and sports commentators bumbling their uncomfortable way through the gender and cultural complexities associated with the Caster Semenya issue, and being obliged to pronounce on issues around race and gender and bodies of which they have minimal understanding

Comments

[julysea]

The public are obsessed with alleged hermaphrodites it would seem - during my work for AQA, I'm often asked about various female celebrities and their gender status - recent enquiries have centred on Lady GaGa and Ciara and if they are hermaphrodites or born men or whatever. There is also hot debate about Ciara's sexuality. I really cannot believe that so many people care so much to know such information about a person they will never meet and do not know. They obviously have too much spare tie on their hands....

[mal1]

I just find it astonishing that such rigid gender norms still exist - it amazes me that in a supposedly developed country in the twenty-first century, women who choose mildly unconventional modes of appearance and behaviour are still liable to have their gender/sexuality/sanity called into question. FFS.

I have no idea who Ciara is by the way, but I shan't let that prevent me from having an opinion!

[julysea]

The only reason I'm usually bothered by gender norms is when struggling to know the correct pronoun to use to refer to strangers to children, eg, 'don't run over that man on your bike! He doesn't want to be flattened!' screeched after a gleeful child mowing down all and sundry on the path. Though I think I have learnt to say 'person' if in any doubt, rather than cause offence

[mal1]

It's not just children's gender that is assessed by hair length - I still get called Sir with tiresome frequency, even with my increasingly matronly proportions. Because if you've got short hair, you must be a bloke, right? (It's not even that short these days!)