Caster Semenya v IAAF: ruling will have big implications for women's participation in sport
Caster Semenya leads the women’s 800 metres at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
CP DC Press/ShutterstockSheree Bekker, University of Bath
When can a woman not compete with other women? This is, in essence, the question at the heart of the hearing currently before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the international body that helps settle disputes related to sport. The ruling in the case of Mokgadi Caster Semenya and Athletics South Africa v International Associations of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is due at the end of April.
The case centres on the legality of a 2018 IAAF eligibility regulation for women with differences of sex development (intersex women), defined by the IAAF as women who have testosterone levels of over five nanomoles per litre of blood (nmol/l) and whose bodies can ostensibly use that testosterone better than other women can. Under these rules, women athletes with differences of sex development would have to reduce, and maintain, their testosterone levels to 5nmol/l or less in order to compete. The reasoning behind the regulation is that women with naturally high testosterone levels, and whose bodies are apparently highly sensitive to that testosterone, have a significant performance advantage over their peers in certain events.
However, this assertion has to be called into question. First, because research has been unable to prove a direct, causal relationship between testosterone levels and athletic performance – given that so many other factors play a role. And second, because there is no valid laboratory test to determine a woman’s degree of sensitivity to testosterone. Currently, the IAAF mandates physical, gynaecological, and radiological imaging to determine physical signs (such as an enlarged clitoris) as a proxy for testosterone sensitivity. However, this approach is not reliable, liable to false interpretation and subjectivity, and widely viewed as inappropriate and an invasion of privacy.
The case so far
In 2015, following another case before the CAS, a previous iteration of the regulation was suspended and the IAAF was given a deadline to produce new evidence to uphold regulating women’s participation in this way. The IAAF subsequently developed the now contested 2018 regulation on the basis of a new study, which showed a supposed “performance advantage” for specific track events.
However, as my co-author and I argued in a BMJ editorial, this study was shown to be flawed and the authors subsequently acknowledged errors in the data used for the research. This is a red flag of the “science” that underpins the 2018 IAAF regulations. It draws into question the justification for the regulation for these, and indeed any, athletic event. It is against this background that we arrive at the 2019 CAS hearing.
Testosterone levels
Sports organisations have been grappling with the question of eligibility for years now. In reality, however, the science of this issue is quite clear. From a scientific and medical standpoint, we know that testosterone is not the only – or even primary – indicator of sports performance. Indeed, there are many other factors at play – including training, funding, and access to resources – in the development of a winning athlete.
Further, in non-athletes, testosterone ranges between 0.4-2.0nmol/l in girls and women. In elite women athletes, the testosterone range has been shown to be between 0.4-7.7nmol/l, and that women can and do have much higher levels than that, which can also overlap with men’s ranges. So an arbitrary 5nmol/l limit for women could have the effect of capturing and regulating a much larger group of female athletes than intended, including women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (who naturally have high levels of testosterone).
Lab results.Jarun Ontakrai/Shutterstock
In a rebuttal to our BMJ editorial, Stéphane Bermon, a director in the IAAF Health and Science Department, wrote that the IAAF regulation testosterone cut-off point of 5nmol/l is not arbitrary, but rather aims to include women with polycystic ovarian syndrome but to exclude women with differences of sex development. The glaring inconsistency here is that we simply cannot distinguish between these groups based on blood testosterone alone, never mind determining who is sensitive to testosterone and so has a supposed “performance advantage”.
The ‘sex testing’ of women athletes
Just because regulations exist does not mean that they are evidence based, ethical, or even effective. The crux here is that this kind of regulation has its legacy in the long and problematic history of “sex testing” women athletes. It is no accident that the vast majority of athletes affected by these regulations are black women and women of colour from the global south who do not conform to Western ideals of femininity.
We don’t yet know what full evidence, beyond a review from Bermon and colleagues, before the current CAS panel is. But we do know that sex and gender are incredibly complex. Historically we have defined humans as binary “male” or “female”, based on what we knew then about genes and anatomy. This was a clear and useful way of categorising sports participation. But 21st-century medical and social sciences have since progressed, and we now know that both biological sex and sociocultural gender are much more complicated than that.
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In the animal kingdom, there are many species that are hermaphrodite, and in humans we now know there is a spectrum of sex (that includes people who are intersex) and gender (that includes people who are transgender). The complexity of sex in particular as a melange of genes, hormones, anatomy, biology can no longer be classified simply with a binary definition of male or female. It is, therefore, unfair and unethical for the IAAF to make new regulations for women’s sport – to the effect of excluding some women - based on outdated definitions and understandings.
It’s important to also understand the unintentional outcomes of regulations such as the one in question, including the ways in which regulations may potentially breach human rights. The Universal Declaration of Player Rights, which deals with the intersection of sport and human rights, reminds that an athlete’s right to participate in sport cannot be limited by gender (or any other identity-related factor, including sex). So we must understand both this history and unintentional outcomes of policy, including the ways in which regulations may entrench existing power relations.
Given that sport is currently organised according to the binary, and that this is unlikely to change in the near future, then men’s and women’s categories should be predicated on inclusivity. As Jennifer Doyle writes: “Women’s sports is not a defensive structure from which men are excluded so that women might flourish. It is, in fact, the opposite of this: it is, potentially, a radically inclusive space which has the capacity to destroy the public’s ideas about gender and gender difference precisely because gender is always in play in women’s sports in ways that it is not in men’s sports.”
The IAAF case matters because it is fundamentally about all women’s rights to participate in sport. If we do begin to regulate the participation of women with differences of sex development, then it will in effect stigmatise women athletes by categorising, labelling, and excluding them without scientific evidence or ethical consideration. Women should be allowed to compete with women, period. Otherwise we’re starting to talk about genetic superiority with no basis in truth, or humanity. Sheree Bekker, Prize Research Fellow, University of Bath
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Women's World Cup: extra time to reflect on the broader injustices women and girls face
Sarah Zipp, University of Stirling and Lilamani de Soysa, University of Tsukuba
Few events in women’s sport generate more attention than the football World Cup. Around 750m people watched the last tournament and, in June, France will host the 2019 competition, featuring the defending champions from the US.
But the American team’s battle off the pitch may reveal more about the state of women’s football than match day performances. In March, the squad filed a lawsuit against USA Soccer, the governing body of the sport in the country, alleging gender discrimination. The vast pay gap between the men’s and women’s teams – despite the women consistently outperforming the men and generating more revenue – is just one aspect of the legal undertaking.
The squad is arguing for more than a pay raise. Its members want increased support for developing youth football, promoting the game and better pathways for women in international leadership roles. These factors are critical to the future success of the sport and improving opportunities for girls and women to benefit from participation.
This struggle extends far beyond one team, one sport or one country. It forms part of a much wider movement for equal rights across all levels of sport, human rights and politics.
In February 2019, an important step was taken when the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the Swiss government agreed to carry out a feasibility study into the creation of a new “global observatory” for women and sport.
A global observatory (a source of information, analysis and activism) would help align several parallel movements: the UN’s overall efforts to promote gender equality, its sustainable development goals in low and middle income countries, and the ongoing struggle for girls and women in sport.
For decades, these complementary movements have helped advance social change around the globe, working to make the world into a more inclusive space. Yet at the pinnacle of women’s sport, the best athletes are undeniably treated as lesser beings.
Yes, there are differences in popularity and revenue in elite sport, but how sports make profit is complex and gendered. Nevertheless, it is hard to argue against improving opportunities for girls and women to simply play sport for health, social inclusion and recreation.
The global observatory would aspire to identify these inequalities, analyse them, and advocate for change. Yet gender equality initiatives often languish in review, debate and endless contemplation.
In the 1970s, the Olympic system was slowly (and controversially) expanding opportunities for women. The UN also began considering gender equality, and in 1979 adopted an international treaty, The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Essentially a bill of rights for women that prohibits discrimination by sex, it has been ratified by 189 countries. (The US is one of seven countries which have not ratified CEDAW – alongside Iran, Somalia and South Sudan.)
Various groups pressed on for greater social change, but it wasn’t until the 1994 international conference on women and sport that the Brighton Declaration was drafted, which has served as a road map for gender equality in sport. At Brighton in England, the International Working Group on Women and Sport (IWG) was born, becoming a leading voice for gender equality in sport and a UNESCO partner.
Another push came after the 2004 Olympics, when a UNESCO group of ministers for sport first proposed the global observatory. But the call stalled for years until it was revived in 2017. Then, in April 2019, the Swiss government agreed to conduct the feasibility study.
The marathon of gender equality
Progress has been slow, and it will be one of the tasks of the observatory, when it is finally formed, to understand why.
Justice delayed is justice denied – especially in sport, when a month’s hiatus can destroy a life long dream such as competing at the Olympics. Olympic champion Caster Semenya is currently prevented from competing by a ruling which would force her to take hormone suppressing drugs. Her battle is far from over. More broadly, each delay represents opportunities lost for girls and women the world over.
Swiss support in moving the gender and sport agenda further is a valuable step forward. Switzerland is also the place where the UN (in Geneva) and the international world of sport meet (Lausanne is home to the International Olympic Committee and many international sport federations). An observatory for women and sport in Switzerland could become a nexus for sport, gender equality and human rights.
All of this matters beyond sport. Systematic inequalities in sport have a major impact on people’s lives and reflect diverse social, economic and political inequalities.
The observatory should be the platform that monitors, advocates and ensures equality in sport – and beyond. If it does that, everyone will benefit. As Benjamin Franklin once said:
Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.
'I still get tweets to go back in the kitchen' – the enduring power of sexism in sports media
Lesley Visser was one of the first female television sports reporters – but she’s appalled at how little progress has been made.
AP Photo/Bill SikesMichael Serazio, Boston College
The story of the 2019 U.S. women’s national soccer team is not yet written, but its opening chapter – a 13-0 drubbing of Thailand – has inspired American fans hoping for a championship repeat.
The U.S. women’s soccer team has long been the envy of the world. And yet, thanks to a scheduling “oversight,” should the squad make the Women’s World Cup final on July 7, they’ll have to complete for viewers with the Copa America and Gold Cup finals, which will be held on the same day.
In other words, two regional men’s soccer tournaments might upstage a signature worldwide women’s sporting event.
To me, this scheduling “oversight” is just a microcosm of the way women are treated in the world of sports. And it isn’t just relegated to the playing field.
In my new book, “The Power of Sports,” I draw upon dozens of interviews to look at the barriers female athletes and journalists face.
It’s worse than you think.
Lack of interest or lack of coverage?
Almost every single survey of sports media over the years – irrespective of the sport or outlet – finds female athletics wildly underrepresented relative to men’s.
For example, one 25-year-long study showed that local news outlets spend only 3% of their airtime covering women’s sports, with ESPN allocating a mere 2% of its coverage.
Not until the 1990s did women’s sports begin receiving – barely – more attention than sports involving horses and dogs. Of course, that didn’t prevent Serena Williams’ 2015 selection as Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsperson of the Year” from igniting a debate over whether Triple Crown thoroughbred American Pharaoh deserved the honor instead.
The typical rebuttal to the lack of coverage is an alleged lack of interest.
But this obscures the circular logic that bedevils women’s sports: The way in which sports media outlets market and cover games partly determines how much fan interest they’re able to gin up. In other words, ratings are often generated by hyping the games. When ratings go up, it justifies the use of those resources.
So when a WNBA game gets punted to an obscure cable channel and has a low production value, it sends a message about priorities to audiences.
Networks like to claim they’re just responding to market forces when they ignore these games. But it’s never been a level playing field: Women’s sports rarely receive the media attention lavished on men’s, so the comparison seems unfair.
When I asked ESPN’s executive vice president for programming and production about this problem, he shrugged. “Any media entity,” he said, “tend[s] to focus the majority of [its] coverage on the topics that are most interesting to your viewers, right?”
In other words, ESPN claims to be amoral on questions of gender equality. Its obligation is to simply give the audience what it thinks it wants.
All men, all the time
Meanwhile, sports media remains an overwhelmingly male field.
More than 90% of anchors, commentators and editors are men. Not until 2017 did a woman announce a men’s March Madness or Monday Night Football game.
Might this color the way female athletes are portrayed? One 2013 review highlighted some notable disparities. When talking and writing about female athletes, commentators tend to focus more on their emotions. They tend to downplay their physical prowess on the field and sexualize their bodies off the field.
Conditions aren’t much better for women working in the media.
Lesley Visser was a sportscaster across multiple networks for four decades. In the late 1970s, as a young reporter for The Boston Globe, she received – and ignored – a media credential stipulation that forbade “women or children in the press box.”
She assumed that waves of women would have followed her lead. But she can’t believe how little progress has been made.
“I go to the NFC Championship, and in the press box there are maybe three women out of 2,000 credentials,” she told me. “I think we’re at the same percentage as in the 1980s.”
Social media mobs swarm
The few that do break through can expect to be targeted on social media.
“I still get tweets to go back in the kitchen,” Tina Cervasio, a sports reporter for Fox’s New York affiliate, told me. “They’re worried about color of hair and how a woman looks. … If I was as fat and bald as [some male sportscasters], I would not have that job.”
Kim Jones of the NFL Network concurred. “I’ve gotten tweets that the only reason I have a job is because of my looks; I’ve also gotten plenty more tweets that, you know, I’m an unattractive reporter who shouldn’t be on television.”
This highlights the double bind that female sports journalists face: They feel the pressure to look good for the cameras. But then they’re also denigrated by some who say they only have their jobs because of that attractiveness. It’s tough to imagine a handsome male sportscaster having the same charge leveled against him.
And when mistakes get made – as any human is liable to do – the female sports reporter feels like she’s given less leeway than her male counterpart because he doesn’t have to prove that he really belongs there.
As former ESPN anchor Jemele Hill explained to me, whenever she makes an honest error,
“The immediate reaction from a still-too-large segment of the public is going to be, ‘That’s why women shouldn’t talk sports.’ Even though most guys that are in [my] position probably would make a similar mistake, but it’s never going to be about their competence. It’s never going to be about their gender, where it will be for me.”
Journalist Jemele Hill speaks on stage during the 2017 Hashtag Sports Conference in New York City.Steve Luciano/AP Images for Hashtag Sports
In 2016, an award-winning public service announcement featured male fans reading actual tweets that had been directed at prominent female sportscasters.
“I hope you get raped again,” one read. Another: “One of the players should beat you to death with their hockey stick like the whore you are.”
One of those targeted on social media, Chicago sports talk radio host Julie DiCaro, weighed in poignantly this past April.
“It always seems to come down to this idea that men have a proprietary interest in sports that women don’t have,” she told The Chicago Tribune. “As if we aren’t the daughters of Title IX. As if some of my earliest memories aren’t sitting on my dad’s lap watching the Bears and Cubs. … Sports belong to all of us.”
They should. They just don’t – yet. Michael Serazio, Associate Professor of Communication, Boston College
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
There are plenty of female superstars in football, but very few women coaches – here's why
There are still fewer women coaches in all levels of UK football.
Chalermpon Poungpeth/ ShutterstockBeth Clarkson, University of Portsmouth
Football has long been considered a man’s world in the UK – but this is changing. Not only did the semi-final match of the 2019 Women’s World Cup attract more than 11.7 million viewers, 2018 also saw the establishment of the first top-tier professional women’s football league ever. And, for the first time since the Women’s Super League (WSL) was founded in 2010, women coaches actually outnumbered men by two to one in the 2019-2020 season.
While this progress is certainly something to celebrate, the industry remains dominated by men. Even in women’s football leagues, men still hold 91% of all coaching jobs at all levels. In the semi-professional league, Arlesey Town’s head coach, Natasha Orchard-Smith, is currently the league’s only female head coach.
The gender balance of coaches in the WSL is a welcome sign of industry progress – but my colleagues and I still wanted to know why women continue to be kept out of coaching roles at all levels of football.
Male dominance in football can be traced back to 1921, when the Football Association (FA) excluded women from participating in organised competitive football, after it had declared them “unsuitable” for the game.
This wasn’t always the case – football matches between women’s factory teams during WWI regularly attracted crowds in the tens of thousands. But after the FA ban come into effect, women’s exclusion from football lasted five decades. One author argued this exclusion was part of the FA’s deliberate attempt to restrict women to traditional notions of femininity, and recover the masculine image of football which had been lost during World War I.
When the FA rescinded the ban in 1971, women’s football was seen as lesser than men’s football. Female players repeatedly experienced gender discrimination and stereotyping. The president of FIFA was even accused of being sexist in 2004, after urging women to wear skimpier football kits to increase the popularity of women’s football.
The barriers women face
We wanted to find out what barriers women coaches in England face across grassroots, academy and adult elite football levels. We interviewed 12 women head coaches from all levels of football – including five youth recreational coaches, four talent development coaches and three elite coaches. We found that all women coaches routinely encountered sexism, felt they had to work harder to achieve their goals compared to men and worried about being seen as lesser than men.
In every level of football, women talked about football culture being male dominated and all said they had routinely experienced sexism. For example, all women coaching at the youth recreational level reported that they were given fewer resources – such as kit and access to pitches – if they coached a team of girls. Coaches also had to fight to use the new equipment that male players were given.
One woman in our study was also told outright by a professional club that it didn’t hire women. An elite-level coach we interviewed said she experienced a lot of sexism in football, adding that men felt insecure around her and would try to “assert their dominance” with sexist “banter” at training or in the dugouts during matches.
We found that all the women we spoke to had experienced gender stereotyping. One head coach for a men’s team recalled arriving to give a pre-game talk in her first week and being asked by male players if she was there to clean their boots, or being told she should wash their kit – which made her wonder if she was good enough to be a head coach.
We also found that women coaching at every level had to accept they’d need to fight harder for everything. And, if they were appointed, it would probably be to less desirable positions – such as coaching younger age groups. Many felt their career progression was limited as a result, placing them under extra pressure to develop players into elite performers.
Women coaches had to fight harder for everything – including equipment and pitch access.Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock
We found that women faced similar barriers across all levels of football, but there were also challenges unique to grassroots, academy, and elite coaching. For instance, grassroots coaches reported feeling isolated (such as being the only female coach at their club), and lacking confidence.
But women coaches at adult elite levels of football felt that culture was improving. While they were still seen as “token” women, they felt there was greater acceptance from male colleagues. However, these women didn’t want to be seen as a “woman coach,” and were worried that movements focused solely on increasing their number of women coaches might pressure teams to hire women, rather than employing a woman best suited for the role.
This differed from the coaches at grassroots and academy levels who wanted more support for women, such as opportunities to meet other women coaches, having a mentor, or attending women-only education courses. But elite coaches said they didn’t want to attend these courses for fear of being viewed as an outsider, being seen as unable to achieve the same standard as men, or as needing extra help to achieve the same goals as their male colleagues.
Research has shown that male-dominated coaching courses can be intimidating and uncomfortable for women, which is why women-only courses are now held across the country. But despite the potential benefits of these courses, elite-level coaches in our study reported that these courses are often viewed as being “substandard” when compared with their mixed-gender equivalent. As a result, many didn’t want to be seen attending them.
Progress is continuing to be made – and the FA have launched numerous initiatives to boost the number of women coaches at the regional and national levels.
There is also movement away from a “one-size-fits-all” approach to supporting women coaches, including initiatives such as 21 for 21 which provide 21 women with funding and mentoring support ahead of the UEFA Women’s Euro 2021. Our study suggests that support needs to be different for women depending on their current career stage and on the type of role they hold at grassroots, academy, or elite level. Knowing this can help continue to promote progress for women coaches. Beth Clarkson, Senior lecturer in Health and Exercise Science, University of Portsmouth
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
