Construction Of Gender In Sports Gender Tests In Elite Athletics

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Gender Studies, grade: 1,0, University of Münster (Sportwissenschaft), course: Körper – historisch, soziologisch, kulturwissenschaftlich betrachtet, language: English, abstract: In the context of this thesis the topic of the gender construction is taken up. Subject areas of the social and natural sciences try to find the causes of the gender-specific differences with the aid of various theories. At first, an analysis of the relationship between society, gender and sport should make it clear how the social subsystem Sport was influenced and structured by everyday theory. Using the example of the controversial phenomenon of sex tests in sport, it should be shown that the gender of a person cannot be measured using biological-medical criteria only. This thesis is contrary to the widespread opinion in medicine and biology that sex can be clearly determined based on five criteria. Therefore, a fundamental understanding of the procedure and basics of gender testing should be created by summarizing these criteria. In a second step, it is shown that it is possible by a social-scientific point of view to question hypotheses of a purely biological, pre-social nature of man. A basic insight is that the society in which we live is a result of our own actions. The everyday distinction between man and woman is an expression of attribution that does not refer to the individual but to the cultural system. It raises the question of the social aspect in the gender categorization. This questions the collective assumptions of the binary system of attribution as it considers the process of forming different genders in the social world.

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Health - Sports science, grade: 1,0, University of Münster, language: English, abstract: In the context of this thesis the topic of the gender construction is taken up. Subject areas of the social and natural sciences try to find the causes of the gender-specific differences with the aid of various theories. At first, an analysis of the relationship between society, gender and sport should make it clear how the social subsystem Sport was influenced and structured by everyday theory. Using the example of the controversial phenomenon of sex tests in sport, it should be shown that the gender of a person cannot be measured using biological-medical criteria only. This thesis is contrary to the widespread opinion in medicine and biology that sex can be clearly determined based on five criteria. Therefore, a fundamental understanding of the procedure and basics of gender testing should be created by summarizing these criteria. In a second step, it is shown that it is possible by a social-scientific point of view to question hypotheses of a purely biological, pre-social nature of man. A basic insight is that the society in which we live is a result of our own actions. At first glance, the question of a person’s gender acts as if the answer is obvious. Gender is one of the central structural principles of our society. The population consists of women and men, girls and boys. There is a social system of the two sexes and sex seems to be given by nature. In everyday life it is associated with the idea of a recognizable and invariable distinction between woman and man. This is closely linked to the assumption of gender polarity. Thus, there are assumptions of different characteristics and behaviors, as well as a natural gender hierarchy and performance. Girls play with dolls, put on make-up, wear pink clothes and are especially tender and sensitive. Boys, however, are ambitious and self-reliant, playing with toy cars and crafts. But the fact that this societal system received such great social significance for the two sexes is not based solely on the natural conditions. Rather, it is a social order that has developed in our society since the eighteenth century and has been proven by biology and medicine since the nineteenth century. An understanding was developed by supposedly scientifically precise facts of the natural sexual characteristics of women and men.

After the young South African athlete Caster Semenya won the 800m title at the 2009 World Championships she was obliged to undergo gender testing and was temporarily withdrawn from international competition. The way that this controversy unfolded represents a rich and multi-layered example of the construction of gender in wider society and the interrelationships between sport, culture and the media. This is the first book to explore the case in depth, from socio-cultural, ethical and legal perspectives. Analysing what came to be called "the Caster Semenya Case" in a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary fashion, and covering issues from media discourses and the rhetoric and regulations of the sport’s governing bodies to the reaction of the athlete herself, the book explores the ethics of how gender norms in sport, and in society more generally, are constructed through appearance, behaviour and sporting performance. This 2009 controversy can be taken as an indicator of the tensions of the time, and served as a link between medical sciences, society and gender. Including discussions of key concepts such as 'intersex', 'body norms', and 'fairness', Gender Testing in Sport is fascinating and important reading for anybody with an interest in sport studies, gender studies or biomedical ethics.

In just a few decades, sport has undergone a radical gender transformation. However, Cheryl Cooky and Michael A. Messner suggest that the progress toward gender equity in sports is far from complete. The continuing barriers to full and equal participation for young people, the far lower pay for most elite-level women athletes, and the continuing dearth of fair and equal media coverage all underline how much still has yet to change before we see gender equality in sports. The chapters in No Slam Dunk show that is this not simply a story of an “unfinished revolution.” Rather, they contend, it is simplistic optimism to assume that we are currently nearing the conclusion of a story of linear progress that ends with a certain future of equality and justice. This book provides important theoretical and empirical insights into the contemporary world of sports to help explain the unevenness of social change and how, despite significant progress, gender equality in sports has been “No Slam Dunk.”

In 1968, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) implemented sex testing for female athletes at that year's Games. When it became clear that testing regimes failed to delineate a sex divide, the IOC began to test for gender --a shift that allowed the organization to control the very idea of womanhood. Lindsay Parks Pieper explores sex testing in sport from the 1930s to the early 2000s. Focusing on assumptions and goals as well as means, Pieper examines how the IOC in particular insisted on a misguided binary notion of gender that privileged Western norms. Testing evolved into a tool to identify--and eliminate--athletes the IOC deemed too strong, too fast, or too successful. Pieper shows how this system punished gifted women while hindering the development of women's athletics for decades. She also reveals how the flawed notions behind testing--ideas often sexist, racist, or ridiculous--degraded the very idea of female athleticism.

While efforts to include gay and lesbian athletes in competitive sport have received significant attention, it is only recently that we have begun examining the experiences of transgender athletes in competitive sport. This book represents the first comprehensive study of the challenges that transgender athletes face in competitive sport; and the challenges they pose for this sex-segregated institution. Beginning with a discussion of the historical role that sport has played in preserving sex as a binary, the book examines how gender has been policed by policymakers within competitive athletics. It also considers how transgender athletes are treated by a system predicated on separating males from females, consequently forcing transgender athletes to negotiate the system in coercive ways. The book not only exposes our culture’s binary thinking in terms of both sex and gender, but also offers a series of thought-provoking and sometimes contradictory recommendations for how to make sport more hospitable, inclusive and equitable. Transgender Athletes in Competitive Sport is important reading for all students and scholars of the sociology of sport with an interest in the relationship between sport and gender, politics, identity and ethics.

In July 1950, a young Dutch intersex woman was expelled from elite competition by the International Amateur Athletic Federation. It turned out to be the beginning of a dark era in the history of women in sport. Young women were subjected to humiliating examinations and dozens of intersex athletes were suspended, although no fraud was ever uncovered. This book presents a compelling argument against gender verification, showing the pernicious effects that suspension inflicted on the lives of young athletes. Some withdrew from the public eye, lived in solitude, or even committed suicide. Compassionate profiles of these banned athletes highlight the unfair play of gender verification and of their exclusion from competition.