Caster Semenya and the Inequities of Competitive Sport

The comments about Caster Semenya here at Feministing and elsewhere have prompted me to reflect a little bit on my own experience in competitive athletics. I was a competitive rower for six years. Two of those years I spent rowing at a NCAA Division I school. To be able to compete in the NCAA you do sign away some privacy and independence.  Urine testing is a commonly cited example of this. For the sample to be considered “good” an official has to see the stream hit the cup. Yeah, that means someone has to watch you pee. Is it humiliating? I didn’t think so. A little awkward maybe but not really an invasion.

There were plenty of other invasions though. Like the fact that my coach was constantly commenting on my weight.  One season I would be too heavy. The next, too light. In many ways your body simply ceases to be your own. When you sleep and for how long is largely determined by practice schedules. Some coaches insist that their athletes follow certain diets. There’s an endless list of compromises that athletes make in their personal lives to be better competitors. I don’t think any of these compromises are comparable to the one that Caster Semenya is being asked to make but that isn’t really what I want to focus on in this post. My moment of clarity on Caster Semenya came when I began to consider how height affects athletes.

I am 5’4”. That’s pretty close to the average for women worldwide. Yes, it varies from country to country but 5’4” is definitely within the “average” range. Except when you’re talking about female athletes. The average height on my team was 5’11” and we had one athlete who was 6’2”. To be able to compete with them, I had to keep up with them. That wasn’t easy. I’m not going to make an argument for height to muscle mass because although there is a correlation between the two there’s no exact formula to determine it. I will say that having longer limbs is generally an advantage for rowers and sprinters alike.

There are weight divisions in rowing that are meant to level the playing field for shorter athletes but not many colleges have lightweight teams and there are less lightweight events in the Olympics as well. This obviously means, less opportunities for shorter athletes. This is a problem because it creates a pyramid effect in competitive athletics. Meaning that the further you travel up the pyramid, the more anatomical restrictions there are to competing. Other factors help to form they pyramid as well such as access to facilities, nutrition, time, socio-economic status, etc, etc. The system we have built for competitive sport is largely designed to exclude and that is a problem in and of itself.

My question is this: if Caster Semenya should not be allowed to compete with women because gender differences may give her an advantage does that mean that taller athletes should not be allowed to compete with shorter athletes because their height gives them an advantage?

There are a few things I’d like to qualify that question with. First, I realize that in studies on the differences in muscle mass between men and women, men have a lower percentage of body fat and a higher percentage of muscle mass no matter their height. Meaning that if I were to compare myself to a man who was 5’4”, he would still have the muscle mass advantage. However, since there are so few women of average height at the highest levels of competitive sport (gymnastics being a notable exception) I think any advantage that Caster Semanya might have so far as muscle mass is concerned is probably comparable to the advantage that the average elite sprinter would have over a woman of average height (training, technique, etc. all being equal). Second, many people believe that elite athletics are and should be a reflection of the exceptional and therefore athletes who are disadvantaged by their height should be weeded out. I think there is some validity to this argument. However, I don’t think anatomic exceptionality is limited to height.

The discussion surrounding Caster Semanya has reminded me that we need to rethink how we look at competitive sport as an institution.  The limitations we place upon athletes are damaging not only to them but also to society as a whole. I think this is an opportunity to examine both how we view gender and the constructs that govern what we believe about athletes’ bodies in general.

Disclaimer : I know this is far from a perfect argument. I’m posting this so that we can have a discussion on factors not limited to gender. I’m excited to hear your thoughts. Please help me to expand upon this.