Gender in Media Diversity Journal: Gender, Media and Sport

Caster Semenya:

A Girl of Two Parts

by Jennifer Elle Lewis

Semenya

So this was pretty appalling. Curious as to how they will test her “gender?” Will they make her walk in high heels while touching one finger and then the other to her nose? Or will they see if she can apply lipstick without a mirror? With her toes? Upside down?

Ah, the possibilities.

Semenya told to take gender test

Long After

© Jennifer Elle Lewis

Tonga Ferry Sinks

Noo!!!

Gumtree Racism

So here I am in Johannesburg. Much to my surprise, it’s freezing cold. So cold that I have taken to carrying around a portable electric heater, which I use to warm myself like a lizard.

I felt guilty for being so ignorant of Africa’s potential coldness. I felt like just another dumb white person who couldn’t possibly imagine an Africa with leafless sycamore trees and below zero nights. I mean, chilly, sure, but not frozen tundra. Ok. And since I am confessing my ignorance, I had also thought/hoped that there would be monkeys here. You know, any kind of monkey. Even mean monkeys. Baboons would also be fine. I pictured a garden where Jasmine could survive, maybe even Mango Trees, and rabid monkeys that would flay themselves onto my balcony to steal from me. Occasionally they might get electrocuted on the 10 ft tall electric fence, and yeah that would be awful, and smell like a backyard braai, but still, it was my fantasy. Don’t knock it.

So there are no monkeys and it’s cold. There aren’t any zebras either. Bummer.

A few moments ago, I was on Gumtree, trying to find a flatshare when I saw this posting:

Looking for WHITE house mate Price: R 3,000

Ad ID: 146145590 Visits: 8

Share Basis: Flat or House Share Bathrooms (#): 3 bathrooms Location: Johannesburg Northern Suburbs Date Listed: 04/08/2009 Nice big secure house to share, w&l, maid and DSTV incl. Near the CocaCola Dome, Northgate. Regret only white people please. Please contact me. Thanks Jane E-mail:  mailto:janedt@ssi.co.za Tel:       084 777 8049

Ok, Jane. I mean. SERIOUSLY? And you know what is so messed up? There were about 15 others just like it.

I’m not going to go into my whole schpeel about how the white peoples’ imprisonment and then fear of the blacks is fueling so much of the violence here. After all, I can’t say I understand enough to adequately come to any conclusions. Certainly both sides are wrong. Violence in no way is acceptable. But this? Why can’t Jane see that her hatred is only fueling more hate. A Gumtree now used for lynchings? But enough…

In some ways, could we applaud Jane for her honesty? Is an out of the closet and in Go-Go boots racist better than a closeted one? I guess she could have screened her email, or phone interviews, or simply chosen a white candidate over a black one. No one would know her heart of darkness. But no. No. What am I even suggesting…NO. We cannot applaud Jane. Because its NOT ok to broadcast racism… We can call her though. Yes, lets.

15 Hours to Winter

Ugly Barbie

She’s drab, she’s dumpy, she’s nothing to write home about, and she’s going to make the girls of America feel like beauty queens.

On the cover of today’s The Onion was the story: “New Homely Doll to Improve Young Girls Self-Image.” This mock-article suggests that Mattel, the long-time manufacturer of Barbie, is trying to compensate for decades of setting unhealthy beauty standards for young girls. According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, if scaled into real life proportions, Barbie would stand at 5-foot-9 inches, with the measurements of 36-18-33, and would lack the requisite 17 to 22 percent of body fat required to menstruate. The Onion proposes that Mattel’s new model, Plain Pamela, would be a “pale, unsightly plaything, which has a plastic torso scaled to the proportions of a 5-foot-4, 179-pound woman in her mid-30s” and that this will improve the self esteem of girls nationwide.

The “article” also suggests that beyond inculcating more “realistic” beauty standards in young girls, the doll would serve as something for them to feel superior to.  Each doll comes prepackaged with various “unflattering and ill-fitting blouses to drape over her shapeless torso” as well as “stick on psoriasis spots.” Would-be buyers could also purchase various Mattel playsets and accessories including “the Plain Pamela Cramped Studio Apartment, complete with special Dinner-for-One Kitchenette and Depressing Stack of Old People Magazines.” The article suggests that girls might benefit from cultivating a delightful sense of Schedenfreude at an early age.

When I was young, I loved Barbie. I loved Barbie so much that I even made my male cousins love Barbie. We all played with her. It was THE THING to do. I thought she was *beautiful*. In speaking with my friends about the lass years later, I have found that what we loved the most about Barbie was giving her hideous hair-cuts, delimbing her plastic torso and making her have unsanctified sex with just about anyone. Most of the delimbing was somewhat accidental: Barbie kicked her leg too high when she was auditioning for the cheerleading squad; Barbie, while adept at flying, failed miserably when landing; Barbie just couldn’t handle the orgy at the beach, (aka. bathtub); Barbie wasn’t very resilient when poked into the spinning fan blades.

Yes, poor Barbie often wound up back in the bag with the others, naked, delimbed and disgraced. And probably when reassembled for another play date, she acquired the legs and arms of her comrades, never to be truly whole again. However, we NEVER sullied her with magic markers like other kids did, or gave her Mohawks, or made her bald. That was just wrong. Those kids were messed up. However, in the aforementioned acts, Barbie would, from time to time, become decapitated.

I salute Plain Pamela, in fact, I think it would be amazing if Mattel actually came out with a doll like this. But, for the meanwhile, girls across America can continue to deface the company’s prettier models.

Brian Andreas

He kept her skin in the closet & brought it out only for holidays

so not to get crumbs on it.

Do you still love me? she would ask at the end of each day

& he would hum her a song as he smoothed away the creases.

Catalina de Erauso

Thanks to my friend Soraya Field Fiorio, I came to be acquainted with Catalina de Erauso, or the Lieutenant Nun, the swashbuckling, cross-dressing pirate. Ms. Erauso was born in 1585. At the age of 15 she escaped from the nunnery to which she had been sent, revamped her habit into men’s clothing, and boarded a ship bound for Peru disguised as a manservant. And that was just the beginning. The following synopsis is provided by Soraya:

Catalina de Erauso

Catalina de Erauso was a Basquero, born into a family of minor nobility in San Sebastian.  She was tithed to the Church because her family had too many daughters (hence too many dowries to pay), and well, Catalina was not a great beauty, and it was surmised that she would not attract a wealthy, politically advantageous suitor.  Right before she took her vows, she escaped the convent and ran off, wreaking havoc wherever she went until her death in Mexico City circa 1650.

She held various posts, including: page to aristocrats, pupil to religious scholars, assistant to merchants, soldier for the Spanish army in Peru and Chile, but more interestingly, pirate, thief, gambler, murderer, and of course, cross-dresser.  Modern scholarship focuses on her identity as either lesbian or transgender/queer, but any sexual motivation to her cross-dressing seems unlikely.  It was not unheard of for women with no other options to feign a male identity — it was the only way to get decently paid work.

Interestingly, after her sex was revealed when she was captured, she was sent back to Spain to see what the Pope had to say about her.  According to Church laws, he could have excommunicated her, and possibly have had her put to death.  Instead, he granted her dispensation to continue dressing like a man! And blessed her! This was the same pope — Urban VIII — who, a mere few years later, excommunicated Galileo.

She wrote an autobiography titled,  Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World. It is next on my reading list, for sure. She makes those Somali pirates look like child’s play, oh wait, they are children. Anyway, you get my drift.

As of now, I would like to make Catalina my patron saint, ARGH!

Take THAT Craigslist

In your face Craigslist, in your face!

Craig Newmark

Craigslist has decided to remove the “erotic services” section of its website until they can replace it with a more adequately monitored category, “adult services.” This decision was apparently reached due to the recent murder of masseuse Julissa Brisman by Philip Markoff, a 22 year old medical student at Boston University. Prior to this decision, virtually anyone could sell anything on the site with NO moderation. This included the sale of sex acts by both pimps and sex workers, and even the sale of humans themselves, most frequently women and minors.

I became outraged after I watched a film on a young girl who was sold as a sex slave via Craigslist, and still, to this day had not been able to press any charges against the many men who raped her and held her captive over a 3 day period. I wrote a post on the subject. The lack of moderation on Craigslist has lead to countless accounts of the trafficking of women and girls, and is an absolute monstrosity. Due to the ease of use of Craigslist, many people not formerly associated with the sex industry, mainly those who might have trafficked drugs or guns, got on board. It turns out that it is easier and more profitable to export or make a profit on a commodity that is grown locally, such as human beings, especially if that one human could have multiple customers.

Without completely condemning the site, I can acknowledge that in some ways Craigslist could be liberating for sex workers who had formerly relied on pimps to find their clients. If a woman can find her own clients, keep her own profits and do this from the safety of her own home, than it is probably a better option than the traditional scenario. However, usually, despite the fact that she could post and respond to emails herself, there is still a pimp involved.

While it is great that the case of Philip Markoff has lead to the demise of this service, wouldn’t it have been wonderful if any one of the undoubtedly thousands of cases that DIDN’T involve an upper class medical student,  had attracted as much attention or concern.

Regardless, it’s a great day. Craigslist, IN YOUR FACE.