Man? Woman? Not unimportant questions

Caster Semenya. What to make of the whole bruhaha. It is really interesting how the issue has been interpreted by many South Africans as evidence of European racism, or of gender discrimination. The newspapers are full of invective, both from journalists and letter-writers, insisisting that there is a conspiracy to deprive the African of his/her just rewards because of some racist and jealous agenda.

What has been lost sight of in all this madness is the simple issue of ensuring a level playing field in athletics. Surely athletics is about the fielding of athletes who then compete on this level playing field - whilst themselves displaying the differences in physiology that are accounted for by the "normal" range of physiological difference. I suppose that the definition of this range may be central to the debate, but there are some basic rules which should apply, one being that women participate in women's events and vice versa. In fact this is the interesting aspect to this issue, in how to define gender differences when things start to get blurry, i.e. when one examines ratios of female to male hormones etc. Whilst these questions may be difficult to properly define and answer, it does not detract from the importance of doing so in order to ensure that the athletic contest remains meaningful.

If we simply brush aside these questions, then we may as well abandon competition because it's no longer starting from a nominally fair base. Was there fair ground to question Semenya's gender? I think so. Semenya certainly doesn't look feminine - there are no discernable breasts, and Semenya's build, visage and voice are all very masculine. Then there is the fact that Semenya appeared on the scene out of nowhere and displayed a noticeable, indeed decisive, advantage over other competitors. I don't buy the argument that there is racism involved in the decision to test for gender in this case. Surely "Europe" has moved some way past this form of knee-jerk response. Surely this is, at base, an issue of fairness in athletics, and fear of actions being misinterpreted as racist or sexist should not prevent something being done.

The same thing happened in the case of Oscar Pretorius and his attempt to qualify as an able-bodied athlete. I mean, come on, what is going on? With a few more advances in technology, his "blades" may in fact give him an advantage over able-bodied athletes, they certainly seem to be close to achieving parity. It is absurd to even contemplate putting "blade runners" and "normal" folk together on the same track - and not because of any prejudice, simply because it makes a mockery of the whole concept of competition. You don't put grid-iron football players on the same field as rugby players - it makes no sense. Yet Oscar's campaign became a highly emotional one, and I don't remember seeing an opinion expressed contrary to the "this aint fair" attitude, and rallying around Oscar as "one of our own".

There is the spectre of jingoism in all this, a movement away from thinking sensibly about things and away from deferring to the underlying principles which make competition meaningful in the first place. Sure, other principles get trod upon, most noticeably the principle of privacy and protection of the sanctity of the individuals psyche, but if we continually defer to people's beliefs and insecurities, then the whole edifice crumbles, and there's nothing fun to watch on tv anymore...