Racist Gender Testing

Helena Andrews argues for a racial angle in forcing Caster Semenya:

OK, but what are we looking at, or for, exactly? The thick thighs, the muscular arms, the broad shoulders, the wide jaw line, bushy eyebrows and faint mustache? Are these the physical attributes that define Semenya as inherently male, just plain unattractive or a record breaker?

The issue seems to directly question race, beauty and who gets to set the standards. White and western is more female and more beautiful, black and African is less so.

"As a beauty editor, I looked at her face and thought it's a beautiful and very interesting face," said Tai Beauchamp, 31, a beauty and lifestyle expert. "[It's] not a face that is so different from some of the African models that we love." But even that small pinch (definitely not even a handful) of women--Alek Wek, Liya Kebede--are still the exception rather than the norm to our ideas of female beauty, despite two Vogue Italia issues dedicated to black models the most recent being the "Black Barbie" issue.

I think there is a case to be made about beauty standards and black women, and this country's nasty history trying to de-feminize black women. It's also fair to say that, in some respects, our beauty standards differ along race/class axis. I suspect if you polled men on whether they thought Serena Williams was beautiful, you'd see a race/class variable at work.

But as deplorable as it may well have been to submit Semenya to gender testing, I don't really see the race angle. I think part of the problem is most of Andrews quotes come from people who work in the world of fashion. But the aesthetics of fashion aren't the same as the aesthetics of men, or even women (that said Liye Kebede is just murderous.) Maybe other dudes are different, but I don't exactly look to fashion week for a parade of the world's most beautiful women.

It's possible that I'm just an over-westernized African-American, whose lost touch with the mother country's sense of beauty. I'm sure there's some of that. But I don't think so. I think I'm just not into the kind of androgynous East European models, Andrews is calling out.

We are getting into tricky terrain here, I know. I'm trying to be respectful. If you're going to hit "submit" on your comment I'd ask you to do the same. And yeah, you're right. I'm PC as a mutherfucka.