FEM 3100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Caster Semenya, Dutee Chand, Santhi Soundarajan

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Women's Studies
• Course: FEM 3100
• Professor: Fiona Jeffries

Document Summary

Lecture 2: ontologies of gender cont"d (sept. 15) Gender controversies: olympics 2016 (caster semenya and dutee chand) British racer claims she is running two different races because semenya is not a real woman . Santhi soundarajan: chromosomes, hormones, physiological testes only if questioned, failed test and unsuccessfully attempted suicide. Nude parade: female athletes have to go naked in front of judges to show genitalia judges will decide on gender: 1966: ioc introduced chromosomal testing used to root out intersex women and undiscovered male imposters. Why is this now an issue: increased media/social media coverage, controversy circulation, beginning of olympics vs. now. 20th century: olympics no longer exclusive to men anxiety about shift in biological categories. Sports deemed as masculine until the 20th century. Notice how few people present formulatic versions of gender and yet how few are totally unreadable or totally ambiguous halberstam, p. 27.