Welcome to our world

A friend told me about an incident today that happened to her father in law. He was at his gym which is part of a hotel, and while getting showered and changed it became obvious that the only other man in the changing area was watching him quite closely.

The other man started a conversation and asked if fil was staying at the hotel, to which he answered no. Other man asked if he would like to stay, fil was suitably shocked and said no thanks. Other man asked if there was anything he could do to tempt him, cue father in law getting dressed in lightning speed while hurriedly explaining he was meeting his wife.....who he loved............yes wife....did you get that strange man, a wife, with kids!

Anyway, he was understandably quite shaken and shocked by this, he doesn’t come from a generation or background that is comfortable talking about homosexuality let alone being propositioned by a gay man while in a state of undress. It made him feel extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable and such sexual advances from either a male or female is not something he had experienced before.

My friend was suitably understanding and we all agreed no one should be made to feel like that, however, this is the reality for an enormous amount of women. A YouGov survey published in the Guardian reveals that four in ten young women were sexually harassed in public spaces in London last year. This harassment ranges from unwanted comments to physical touching and groping.

This kind of harassment is insidious and so easily and often passed off as just a bit of fun, or even complimentary, that it just blends in to everyday life for a vast majority of women. The only difference I can see is that in the father in laws case the unwanted attention was from a man and he is not homosexual, but being hetro doesn’t mean you are fair game for sexual advances. No woman should have to put up with unwanted attention because she sometimes has consensual sex with a man.

It makes women feel unsafe, it makes us scared, and it reminds us constantly of our vulnerability. The person making the advance knows his intent is merely to compliment/joke/impress/pull/show off/pass the time of day, but we don’t. In his book The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Beckers sums it up really well when he says “Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.” That is our reality. (Disclaimer – before anyone says it, yes men too get raped by other men but the numbers are much smaller and this is a feminist blog therefore my concern is with women).

So, I feel for my friends father in law, I really do. It was inappropriate and it made him feel bad. Now imagine living with the risk of that all the time. Imagine that if it does happen no one will really care. Imagine that men can proposition you and call you frigid when you say no, or can touch you and be offended when you tell them to fuck off. Imagine always being physically smaller and weaker than the person coming on to you, and not knowing if they will get nasty if you don’t laugh along or get the compliment.  It’s pretty damn shit.

Policing Femininity in Sport

A very interesting and disturbing article today here about Caster Semenya, the South African runner who was investigated and suspended by athletic officials because her abilities and appearance raised concerns she was a man.

It turns out that this isn’t an isolated case and an undisclosed number of female athletes will be competing in this years Olympics after having to undergo surgery or hormone therapy. These are athletes who are born as women, raised as women and compete as women, but who have a higher than average testosterone level, in some cases higher than most men. Some of these women have subsequently been found to be intersex – something it is possible not to be aware of. In Semenya’s case she had internal undeveloped testes.

It’s not a new phenomenon for strong athletic women to be checked for gender, it’s just that naked parades have been replaced with hormone checks which reveal the presence of such internal organs.          

There are a vast number of factors that occur through nature or nurture which will affect the chances of an athlete being successful. Jon Entine raises the question of race being a factor, and Bruce Kidd comments that “Personal household and national income is far more relevant to performance than hormonal makeup,” he says. The countries with the highest GDP produce the most gold medals. The richer the athlete, the higher the likelihood of a winner” in the original Star article.

I don’t see anyone asking a black athlete to tone down the fast twitch muscles, or checking the social background of competitors before competing,

There are some people who are genetically gifted to exceed at their sport. This list shows the best VO2 max scores achieved by male athletes. Is it unfair that they have a better natural ability to consume oxygen during exercise? What if research showed a certain hormone could be identified that governed this, would this have to be suppressed with drugs or surgery?

Lance Armstrong has some well documented genetic advantages which helped him win the Tour de France 7 times. Why isn’t anybody testing him to pin point the reason for this, and then suppress it with drugs?

Now call me paranoid, but the only reason I can see is that these are female athletes who do not fit the accepted definition of what it means to look like a woman. They don’t look feminine enough and they don’t fit the acceptable ascetics for a female athlete, so they are subjected to testing. To quote Bruce Kiss again “It’s still the old patriarchal fear, or doubt, that women can do outstanding athletic performances. If they do, they can’t be real women. It’s that clear, it’s that prejudicial,”

Are men tested for testosterone? Will men who have the highest levels have to have it suppressed so as not to have an advantage over other men? Where will it end? Maximum height for basketball so short people can play? Of course not. Its only women who are subjected to this kind of invasive bullshit.

This is a naturally occurring hormone, not a “male” hormone that women have no business having. Some people have less, some have more. Not everyone fits in to a nice neat biological definition of male and female. She is not taping her penis up and shaving her beard before competing.

If the playing field is to be fair, group people by the myriad of other performance indicators; their testosterone, height, weight, race, social economic background, funding or any other category you care to think of, but don’t continue to subject women, and only women, to this level of scrutiny and indignity and force them to undergo unnecessary and unwanted surgery just to be able to compete.