Tag Archives: Sports

How Can We Decide What Makes A Female?

20 Sep

This week the world lost one of the greatest warriors against discrimination on the basis of sex and gender – the very same week that the World Athletics track and field authority ruled that South African champion Caster Semenya will not be allowed to compete in women’s sports in the next Olympics unless she agrees to take medications to lower her testosterone levels. This ruling raises not only issues of bioethics, but—as you can see in the video from Vox above—the plain fact that who belongs to what sex entirely depends upon which scientific definition you choose to go by.

Many misunderstand “intersex” to simply mean a person who has a penis and a vagina. But intersexing conditions include people with ambiguous genitalia, people with one set of genitalia but another set of chromosomes, people with hormone levels rarely found occuring alongside the set of chromosomes or genitalia they have, etc., ad infinitum. White Western beauty standards traditionally associate softer facial bone structure with females and hairier bodies with males, which has led to people from other ethnicities whose biology does not conform to this more often being suspected by Western sports authorities of being intersex or transgender.

Sports obviously matter to Semenya almost as much as her identity as a woman does, so I am in no position to say what she should do in the face of the demand she take hormones. I can only contribute to the views of a public that honors sports and competition so highly that participants have been and are willing to all but torture their bodies for them. Semenya qualifies not only as a minority by virtue of her intersex features, but by her determination to refuse to take whatever body-altering treatments the authorities demand. Perhaps she understands on a deeper level that sports are are as made up as anything else in human society.

From the judging in gymnastics to the disputed calls of referees to the regular changes in rules and scoring, little is objective and everything is up for debate. I get the joy of being wowed by what the human body can do and the feeling of vicariously living through an athlete’s victory. But I also get Emma Gingerich, an Amish woman who left her community and, when asked to name something in modern American life she could never adapt to, replied, “Definitely, games are overrated. I don’t like playing games. I think it’s such a waste of time. I would rather pick up a book.”

Sports and its ever-changing rules aren’t going away anytime soon. Nor is sexism. But the more the world opens its eyes and ears to the many, many people whose bodies defy traditional definition and have until now been marginalized for it, the deeper our discussions of fairness become.

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Disability & the Politics of Shoe-Shopping

16 Oct

Fashion(Image by Thomas Hawk used under CC 2.0 via)

 

“I like them,” I said, eyeing the smart and slinky black sneakers in my hand, “but my orthotic inserts don’t find inside.”

The saleswoman shook her head sympathetically. “These doctors just don’t understand. They make it so difficult for women looking for shoes.”

Um, I don’t think that’s who’s making it difficult, I said to myself. Because she isn’t the one flooding the market with shoes that discriminate against disabled bodies, it didn’t feel necessary that this one saleswoman be confronted with the issue. But we as a society probably should.

If I don’t wear my orthotics, I burden my achondroplastic back in very unhealthy ways. The same goes if I wear heels regularly, instead of only occasionally, as my orthopedist advises. When I was younger I would often flout the rules, but my tolerance for pain-inducing shoes has lessened since I turned 30 and needed back surgery to avoid paralysis, as one-third of all people with achondroplastic dwarfism do. A friend who has undergone a few operations on her spine absolutely cannot wear heels. Yet wearing orthotics every day is not seen as being healthy and responsible in the same way that, say, running a marathon is.

Will chronic pain management never be seen as bad-ass because it lacks the thrill of breaking records or leaving others in the dust? Or is it because it defies the “no pain, no gain” rule? In which case, foregoing orthotics and swallowing the pain would seem to be the bad-ass choice.

“Oh, I rarely ever wear my orthotics!” two non-disabled women told me years ago.

Eat something sugary or fattening and you can easily attract disapproving looks or even commentary. (“Do you know how many calories/toxins are in that?!”) But risk back pain in a pair of stilettos that make you teeter like a giraffe and you’re suffering for beauty like any self-respecting woman would.

Why? Is it because, as Jessica Valenti wrote last year, too few woman are willing to endure “the social consequences of aesthetic apathy”? Does bodily beauty always require some degree of discomfort? Even the love-your-body yoga crowd pushes the back-to-the-earth barefoot aesthetic, which can be supremely painful for many disabled people.

Fashion is fickle and ever-changing. In a world where humans can find beauty in everything from body-builder biceps to heroin chic, and switch from viewing heels as manly to sexy, it seems possible for us to stop marginalizing and perhaps even some day tout medically responsible choices as fashionable choices. Why haven’t we managed this yet? What will it take to get us there?

 

 

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High Schools Fight to Keep Midgets As Mascots

12 Jul

(Via)

 

Calling someone what they wish to be called should be a no-brainer but is often met with resistance. Asking someone else to change their name in deference to someone else, however, sometimes seems harder than limb-lengthening.

Little People of America is holding its annual national conference this week in St. Louis and has voiced their offense at the name of a local high school sports team across the river in Freeburg, Illinois. The school is one of several across the United States whose sports teams are named the Midgets and LPA would like this to change. Freeburg school superintendent Andrew Lehman does not expect to see the mascot altered any time soon.  “That term can be very subjective. What’s offensive to one person or group of people is going to have a very different meaning to other people,” he states.

You can sign the Little People of America petition here, or you can add your name to the list of 3,446+ supporters arguing to keep it. Author of the latter petition Jared Fricke explains:

It is time in America to stand up and say words do not create evil and if we allow a few short minded people to dictate what is right and wrong then we will live in a world full of fear. Freeburg is not a place of hate, and as Americans we have the right to use the Midgets as a mascot because it is the foundation of what it meant to come from Freeburg. We are a small town, but that does not stop us from achieving great things.

In 1997, the board of education at a high school in Dickinson, North Dakota voted to the drop their Midget mascot, but was met with such a punitive backlash—costing three board members their jobs—that it was swiftly reinstated.

The Dickinson name was given to the team by a sportswriter in the 1920s. The Freeburg superintendent claims their mascot originated in the 1930s. Bestowing nicknames based on supposed physiological shortcomings as a form of ribbing was common in the U.S. in those days. Major League Baseball abounded with players named “Red,” “Pudge,” “Curly,” “Pinky,” “Shorty,” and “Lefty.” In Fried Green Tomatoes, set in 1930s Alabama, the protagonist starts calling her nephew “Stump” after he loses his arm in an accident. The seven dwarfs in Disney’s 1937 film—Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Dopey, Bashful and Doc—were the final names chosen out of a pool of suggestions that included Jumpy, Deafy, Dizzy, Hickey, Wheezy, Baldy, Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy, Swift, Lazy, Puffy, Stuffy, Tubby, Shorty and Burpy.

Caricaturing minorities in mascots and logos was also common on both sides of the Atlantic. Sam Greenspan at 11points has documented a handful of other jaw-dropping mascots that only recently underwent name changes, from the Frisco Coons to the Pekin Chinks. Those my age and older who grew up in the U.S. can easily recall the mammy origins of Aunt Jemima, while those who grew up in Finland are equally well acquainted with the first incarnation of Fazer black licorice. While some embarrassing examples endure, most of these corporate logos have been altered within my lifetime and with much greater ease than the sports mascots like the Washington Redskins, the Cleveland Indians, and the Freeburg Midgets. Why?

The corporate world is very invested in what other people think because their primary concern is the bottom line. The world of competitive team sports, however, both engenders and depends on a sense of community identity, the ultimate Us vs. Them mentality. Bowing to outside pressure is anathema to this, as one signatory of Fricke’s petition argues:

This group is not affected on a daily by our mastcot [sic] ever!!! They come to our area and are just looking for a reason to be in the news. It’s a source of pride in Freeburg and is something needs to stay as a part of our high school’s tradition. Midget Pride baby!

Let’s give the mascot’s supporters the benefit of the doubt for the moment and assume they only mean well by shouting “Midget Pride!” Let’s ignore the slur status of the M-word and consider whether Little People of America should not perhaps focus their indignation on more direct forms of de-humanization, like dwarf-tossing and rejection by family. What’s so bad about a small town thinking dwarfism is the perfect metaphor for their tiny-but-tough identity after all?

It’s an important question for high school students to ponder. I began this blog with a post about why I find the little-in-size-but-large-in-spirit slogan inherently demeaning. And small town students would only benefit from asking themselves, “Do we truly know what it’s like to be a real-life midget?” And from considering the issue of appropriation as it was summed up by a friend of mine: “If you actually wish you had a freak flag to wave, then you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about because you don’t know what it’s really like to be widely seen as a freak.”

Indeed, a very common phase in adolescence involves trying on different identities to figure out your own. Self-actualization relies on it. But after a certain age, stagnating in this phase becomes a sign of immaturity. I don’t fault teenagers who appropriate identities via shallow, melodramatic thinking—like mixing a love of the macabre with murder at Columbine, or thinking it’s touching instead of terrible to compete for Olympic gold to the tune of Schindler’s List—but I do fault any of their adult role models who do.

As a place of higher learning, I’d be most pleased to see the school resist the urge to stand united and firm against the PC police and instead encourage their student body to debate and reflect upon why those of us with dwarfism might not feel honored by their mascot. They should not agree with us right away. They should not mutter Whatever and begrudgingly bow to LPA’s request. But instead reflect on the many complex issues it brings up for us, in all seriousness and with sincerity.

 
 

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Mother Petitions to End Germany’s Nationwide Youth Games

5 Jul

BXP135660(Image by Tableatny used under CC license via)
The Nationwide Youth Games (Bundesjugendspiele) are a 95-year-old annual tradition here in Germany wherein students ages 6 to 16 spend a day competing against each other in track and field, swimming, and gymnastics. The total scores are read off in a ceremony before the entire school, and those who accumulate a certain number of points are awarded either a “certificate of victory” or a “certificate of honor.” Since 1991, “certificates of participation” have been handed out to the rest of the students.

After her son came home sobbing at having received a mere certificate of participation two weeks ago, journalist Christine Finke started an online petition to put an end to the Games. She explains on her blog:

I’m doing this for all the children who feel sick to their stomach the night before the Nationwide Youth Games, for those who wish they could disappear into the ground during the Games, and for those who want to burst into tears during the awards ceremony… Sports should be fun and make you feel good about your body. But the Nationwide Youth Games are founded on grading: on the upgrading and degrading of some at the expense of others.

She dismisses the Games as a relic of the Nazi era, and while the original Reich Games preceded Hitler, founder Carl Diem did go on to be active member of the regime who instrumentalized the Games as propaganda for the Nazi obsession with bodily perfection. Finke points to the Nazi-like language of her critics on Twitter: “Our children shouldn’t be allowed to turn into sissies.”  Indeed, mottos such as Only the strong survive commonly found in sports culture in the U.S. and other countries are not taken lightly here in Germany, where sick and disabled citizens were murdered in mass numbers less than a century ago. 

As a semi-disabled kid, I had plenty of physical limitations, but, like most kids, I enjoyed the sports that I could play fairly well (baseball, tennis, jump rope) and I quickly got bored with those that put me at the bottom of the class (basketball, football, soccer).  Due to the vulnerability of the narrow achondroplastic spinal column, I wasn’t ever allowed to participate in gymnastics, and contact sports were forbidden after the age of 10 when my peers began to tower over me.  I countered the feelings of exclusion with feelings of pride for holding the pool record for staying underwater (1 minute 15 seconds), and for surpassing everyone in the joint flexibility tests. But what about the kids whose bodies ensure that they will never surpass anyone else in any competition? The best advice I ever got came from my primary school physical education teacher: “If you had fun, you won.” 

But then came adolescence, and with the onset of puberty, the body suddenly is no longer merely something that gets you from place to place. It becomes an object you are expected to sell to others in the brutal competition of dating and mating. It’s no wonder that an almost debilitating self-consciousness encompasses so many, whether in the form of sitting out of sports, refusing to ever dance or, in extreme cases, developing disordered eating habits.

I asked adult German friends how they felt about the Games. “It is the most humiliating memory I have from school!” one responded.

“It’s more likely to teach people to stay far, far away from sports for the rest of their lives, rather than inspire them to be more physically active,” argued one mother.

“Ach, it wasn’t humiliating,” insisted one man. “It was boring. It was all about skipping out to go smoke cigarettes while the super-athletes had their fun.”

“Exactly!” chimed another. “No one cared about it except the ones who won everything.”

I spent my high school years as the scorekeeper for the girls’ volleyball team at the urging of one of the two coaches, whom I both admired greatly. Throughout three years of volleyball games, I witnessed edifying examples of cooperation and self-confidence, and I witnessed a lot of childishness and borderline cruelty from overemotional adults as well as teens.

From that time on, I’ve generally viewed competitive sports the same way most people view rodeos or yodeling clubs – i.e., good for you if you derive joy from that sort of thing, but the competitions and the medals say nothing to me about whether or not you’re a lovely person. 

Of course athletic achievement can signify important life skills like self-discipline and team work, as a recent Michigan State University study has found. But sports are not necessary for developing those skills. Self-discipline can also be demonstrated by reading two books a week or vowing to learn a foreign language and actually doing it.  Tolerance, self-confidence and decisiveness has been shown to increase among students who study abroad.  Team work can be learned from playing in a band.  Or, as LeVar Burton taught us on Reading Rainbow, an aerobics-inspired dance troupe. 

In arguing to keep the Games, physical education teacher Günter Stibbe says, “Sports are brutal, of course.  But students have to learn how to deal with humiliation.”

Indeed, narcissism is characterized not just by excessive bragging but also by reacting badly to criticism or failure.  Performing poorly in sports—or in any field—can be an opportunity to learn to accept all the moments in life when you won’t be seen as special. But the idea that the body is only worth what it can do is deleterious. And too many educators fail to teach students the dangers of being too competitive and fearing weakness. 

The heavier burden may in fact fall on those who come out on top in high school and risk later panicking when they learn that the big wide world doesn’t really care about how many points they accrued in the discus throw back when they were 16.  Both the losers and the winners would benefit from learning that athletic competitions in youth are no more important than rodeos or yodeling competitions at any time in your life.  After all, points and medals are no indication of whether or not you’ll know how to pursue healthy relationships, be a responsible member of your family and community, or find a fulfilling career. Those who heavily brag on into adulthood about how hard they just worked out down at the gym—or how many books they read, or how much they earn—usually appear to be compensating.

This is perhaps why Stibbe criticizes the tradition of reading of the scores in front of the whole school as “pedagogically irresponsible.”

But in Der Spiegel’s online survey, there is no option for arguing for the Games on the grounds of sportsmanship and accepting one’s limitations. The two arguments to click on to support the tradition are “For God’s sake! It was the only thing I was ever good at in school!” and “What else would we do with our crumbling race tracks?” The majority of the 57,000+ respondents chose the latter.

 

 

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