Anything Ken Can Do, Barbie Can Do Better

Unless Barbie is suspected of being a Ken.




Recently, the sports news waves have been on a rip tide with articles about track runner Caster Semenya.

Semenya is a runner from South Africa who has ran HER entire life and is now under scrutiny that she may possibly be a man--not a woman.

I have been reading various articles trying to figure out how to go at this, but I have found it truly difficult.

The top article that I have come across was published in The New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/sports/22runner.html?_r=1&ref=sports


The article goes on to describe how a man and a woman are not simply determined by XY or XX chromosomes. Some men can even have XX chromosomes, but the average person does not know this. Caster may not know she had male characteristics. Caster may have just thought she was unordinarily fast for a woman--and if no one ever told her different, then she had no reason to think different. Now she under a whole lot of scrutiny, when it's the coaches who have seen her through the years who should be put under the questioning. SOMEONE before this year must have thought "hey she is really fast, maybe she isn't completely a she."

So here's my question: Shouldn't the tests have been conducted before she was allowed to run in the event? It would save the runner a whole lot of embarrassment--and keep the media and others in their place.

Or maybe people just don't want to believe that a woman could physically be so good.

Newsflash--maybe she could be.