This is another article I found from the Feminist Majority Foundation. As if women didnt already have issues but recently because of high athletic performance women in the olympics are being accused of being men. This is definitely outrageous. Recently Beijing Olympic officials are setting up sex determination tests for females suspected of being males. Each female suspect will be evaluated based on external appearance and blood samples tested for sex hormones, chromosomes, and genes. Sex testing began in Eastern Europe in the 1960's and the first athlete to be tested was in the 1968 Mexico City games. In the 1996 Games in Atlanta eight athletes were tested and failed. Later on these same athletes were cleared which just goes to show that these tests may not be as accurate as people may think. This kind of testing affects and destroys the lives of many women. Two famous olympic runners from Poland and India were stripped of their medals after failing sex tests. This type of testing has become a very controversial issue in athletics. Chromosomal abnormalities in women can cause them to fail the test and these same women have no competive advantage over other female athletes. Women who fail are required to take a physiological exam which just turns out to be an invasion of privacy. It is so sad that women have to be accused of being men just because they are highly skilled at what they do.
Here is a link to a site that gives more info about Olympic sex testing.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2008-07/27/content_6880175.htm
This blog is created by students from Clemson University's summer II online course: ws103 -- Women in Global Perspectives. This class serves as a cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary introduction to issues facing women globally. Issues will include women and work, violence against women, reproduction and women's health, sexuality and rites of passage, women and the weight of tradition, and movements for women's empowerment.
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- President Bush threatening access to birth control?
- Hiring Women in the Workplace in 1943
- Rowling for Charity
- Queen Victoria's Bloomers!
- Sex Testing for Olympics
- Passports Handed Out in Kosovo
- gender non-absolutism
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Links
from the mouths of others...
"Well-behaved women seldom make history."
-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
-Madeleine K. Albright
"It is not possible to address society's needs at any level while ignoring the perspectives, priorities, and knowledge of more than half of the world's population."
-Rosina Wilshire of UNDP
"Women give life. We have the capacity to give life and light. We can take up our brooms and sweep the earth."
-Isabelle Letelier
"Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender."
-Alice Walker
"Violence against women will end when legal, philanthropic, governmental and non-governmental organizations and impassioned individuals unite and stand up to say it is a priority, to say that the time for ending violence is now."
-Eve Ensler
"And ain't I a woman?"
-Sojourner Truth
"Considering how dangerous everything is nothing is frightening."
-Gertrude Stein
"Also we've found that when we discuss women's problems, we need the men to be present, so that they can contribute by giving their opinions of what to do about the problem. And so that they can learn as well. If they don't learn, they don't progress."
-Rigoberta Menchu (222)
-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
-Madeleine K. Albright
"It is not possible to address society's needs at any level while ignoring the perspectives, priorities, and knowledge of more than half of the world's population."
-Rosina Wilshire of UNDP
"Women give life. We have the capacity to give life and light. We can take up our brooms and sweep the earth."
-Isabelle Letelier
"Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender."
-Alice Walker
"Violence against women will end when legal, philanthropic, governmental and non-governmental organizations and impassioned individuals unite and stand up to say it is a priority, to say that the time for ending violence is now."
-Eve Ensler
"And ain't I a woman?"
-Sojourner Truth
"Considering how dangerous everything is nothing is frightening."
-Gertrude Stein
"Also we've found that when we discuss women's problems, we need the men to be present, so that they can contribute by giving their opinions of what to do about the problem. And so that they can learn as well. If they don't learn, they don't progress."
-Rigoberta Menchu (222)
for reading
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali, _Infidel_ (Free Press, 2007)
- Fadela Amara, _Breaking the Silence: French Women's Voices from the Ghetto_ (U of Cal Press, 2006)
- Lijia Zhang, _"Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China_ (Atlas & Co., 2008)
- Marjane Satrapi, _Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood_ (Knopf, 2004)
- Rigoberta Menchu, _I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatamala_ (Verso, 1987)
- Susan Estrich, _Sex & Power_ (Riverhead Books, 2000)
- Wangari Maathai, _Unbowed: A Memoir_ (Vintage, 2007)
Posts
4 comments:
That is really horrible that these women are put through something so personal and humiliating. Asking a woman if they are man? I can't imagine. If there is some sort of problem with chromosomal abnormalities, it's not their fault that this has happened to them. I wonder what would happen if a transgender person wanted to compete in the Olympics. Would they have to compete as the sex they are today or the sex in which they were born? This can bring up major discussion.
I am actually blown away by this article. I can not believe that there is something out there like this kind of testing. It is even worse that 8 people failed the test and then those test results were taken back as being false. I also think that this is pretty ridiculous due to the fact that according to this article it seems that they are only testing women. Plus that idea that the test results seem to be so inaccurate that 1 in 500 to 600 fail the test. There are alot more than 500 or 600 people competeing in the olympics. This is just crazy that women are being tested on because they have skills or a talent. We should be praising these women for doing something so great not telling them that they may be a male. Thanks for sharing this article, this is just way too bad!
I have never actually heard of sex testing in the Olympics so this article was news to me. I cannot believe that women are being accused of being men just because they are great athletes. It seems like the testing involved is not accurate at all, which just makes it even worse. It must be just devastating to defy odds and win a medal in the Olympics and then to have it taken away from you because you are just as strong or althetic as a man. Another issue I have with this is that no where does it mention that they test men for possibly being women. If these supposed men are competing as women, whose to say that there isn't any women who are competing as men. If they are going to test women, they should test men too.
All - I'd just like to note that there is another conversation going on about this too, so check out the discussion there:
http://womeninglobalperspectives.blogspot.com/2008/07/gender-non-absolutism.html
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