Female Olympians No Longer Have to Prove Their Gender
Female Olympians No Longer Have to Prove Their Gender
Sept. 26, 2000 -- The 2000 Olympics have already produced their share of female heroes and role models. U.S. sprinter Marion Jones officially took the title of the "World's Fastest Woman" with her victory in the 100-meter dash on Sunday, and aboriginal runner Cathy Freeman drove the hometown crowd to a near-frenzy on Monday when she won the gold in the 400-meter race.
Olympic organizers paid tribute to women athletes at the opening ceremonies, when Freeman was chosen to light the Olympic flame in celebration of a century of female participation in the Games. A less publicized, but perhaps more enduring, event involving female competitors is occurring behind the scenes in Sydney: For the first time in more than 30 years, women Olympians do not have to prove their gender before being allowed to participate.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials quietly dropped gender-verification testing for this year's Games after more than a decade of protest from some of the world's leading geneticists and physicians and after its own athletic board petitioned it to do so. The sex testing of female athletes was an antiquated and flawed idea borne of Cold War paranoia, critics say, and it caused unnecessary pain to some women who were branded unfit to compete because of chromosome abnormalities and birth defects that did not affect their athletic performance.
"The question of what is female really came under tremendous scrutiny because of these tests," feminist author Colette Dowling tells WebMD. "The IOC was, in effect, attempting to set the definition of femininity, which they obviously weren't qualified to do." Dowling is the author of the book, "The Frality Myth: Women Approaching Physical Equality," which questions whether women really are physically weaker than men.
Official gender testing of women athletes began in 1968, the IOC says, to detect men pretending to be women and women with "unfair male-like" physical advantages. For several years before this, athletes had been inspected visually or given gynecologic exams. But the committee felt that was too undignified, so it adopted laboratory-based genetics testing procedures.
Female Olympians No Longer Have to Prove Their Gender
Sept. 26, 2000 -- The 2000 Olympics have already produced their share of female heroes and role models. U.S. sprinter Marion Jones officially took the title of the "World's Fastest Woman" with her victory in the 100-meter dash on Sunday, and aboriginal runner Cathy Freeman drove the hometown crowd to a near-frenzy on Monday when she won the gold in the 400-meter race.
Olympic organizers paid tribute to women athletes at the opening ceremonies, when Freeman was chosen to light the Olympic flame in celebration of a century of female participation in the Games. A less publicized, but perhaps more enduring, event involving female competitors is occurring behind the scenes in Sydney: For the first time in more than 30 years, women Olympians do not have to prove their gender before being allowed to participate.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials quietly dropped gender-verification testing for this year's Games after more than a decade of protest from some of the world's leading geneticists and physicians and after its own athletic board petitioned it to do so. The sex testing of female athletes was an antiquated and flawed idea borne of Cold War paranoia, critics say, and it caused unnecessary pain to some women who were branded unfit to compete because of chromosome abnormalities and birth defects that did not affect their athletic performance.
"The question of what is female really came under tremendous scrutiny because of these tests," feminist author Colette Dowling tells WebMD. "The IOC was, in effect, attempting to set the definition of femininity, which they obviously weren't qualified to do." Dowling is the author of the book, "The Frality Myth: Women Approaching Physical Equality," which questions whether women really are physically weaker than men.
Official gender testing of women athletes began in 1968, the IOC says, to detect men pretending to be women and women with "unfair male-like" physical advantages. For several years before this, athletes had been inspected visually or given gynecologic exams. But the committee felt that was too undignified, so it adopted laboratory-based genetics testing procedures.
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