Gina Jackson Personal Fitness

I wish I could get my strong, flat chested butt off this chair and out from in front of the computer.  But I was struck twice this week by stories about the perceived strength of women of color in the news this week.Two NYT articles hit me hard.

This appeared August 19, 2009

On the blue track at the Olympic Stadium, all three medalists celebrated after the women’s 800 meters at the world track and field championships. But when it came time for the postrace news conference, the gold medalist, Caster Semenya, was nowhere to be seen. She had been replaced on the rostrum by Pierre Weiss, the general secretary of the International Association of Athletics Federations, the sport’s governing body.

Earlier in the day, I.A.A.F. officials had confirmed that Semenya, a muscular 18-year-old from South Africa competing in her first senior championship, was undergoing sex-determination testing to confirm her eligibility to race as a woman.

According to Weiss, track and field officials had not had time to resolve the issue before this meet because Semenya had emerged at the world-class level only in the past month. Weiss said that I.A.A.F. officials and South African track and field officials had agreed that it would be too much to ask of an inexperienced teenager to field questions about the gender issue from the news media.

She took the gold and it was further reported in the NYT on August 25, 2009,

Ms. Semenya, who attends the University of Pretoria, has been described as “traumatized” by the row over her sex. But she has been suspected of being a male before. “Boys used to tease her all the time,” said her great-aunt, Martina Mpati. “Sometimes she’d have to beat them up.”

Ms. Semenya is from the village of Ga-Masehlong, in Limpopo Province. Like other girls, she was expected to fetch firewood from the bush at first light. Unlike them, she then went off to play soccer with the boys.

In secondary school, Ms. Semenya concentrated on running. Her principal told the South African newspaper The Star that at some track meets, the other team would demand proof that someone with such a manly physique was really a girl. “But each time they returned from the toilet, she would be cleared and the competition would resume,” he said.

Then, the other painful assault was the NYT Magazine about women across the globe that are beaten, abused, raped and killed because of our sex.

I need to come back to this. It is important and I want to talk more about it.  Right now, I need to shower my flat-chested, muscular body and go teach some other women how to get stronger.

I do not mean this as a joke, in any way.  Do not be confused by my snarkiness!