Ain't I's a Woman?

A couple of days ago, an Austrailian news outlet broke a story that South African teen track-runner is classified as not quite female or male, but a "hermaphrodite".

Actually, "hermaphrodite" is an archaic word, and identified as a term that is misleading and "dead as wrong" by gender activists. Caster is really, "intersexed" or having a sex that is neither male nor female.

Hermaphrodite means that one has the reproductive organs of both male and female.

Intersexed people have chromosomes that are other than XX or XY, or male and female.

(the above is a photo of intersexed genitalia. as you can see this person has a urethra, clitoris and small vaginal cavity, but no labia [vaginal lips]; and by the swell just below the urethra, testes are probably ingrown)

So where does that lead Caster? Socially, emotionally, and psychologically fucked.

Why?

Since there is no discussion of intersexed people in the West, Caster's body becomes a symbol of monstrosity, a subject of research and surveillance, and a foreign entity that is caste as socially and sexually abnormal.

Mainstream news is biasly justifying her "intersexed" body as being more "masculine" or male than female, thus insinuating that her medals should be confiscated.

This bullshit controversy reminds me of 1woman's and civil rights activist Sojourner Truth who had to bare her breast to show that she was a woman in front of a predominantly white crowd.

Standing over six feet with ripling muscles throughout her body from years of labor, this mother of 13 made everyone that day who was sitting in the audience, rethink womanhood; especially black women as being considered as women.

If you didn't know, back then, black people were seen as animals, or beasts of burden.

Sojourner's story puts me back at my sister Caster Semenya, who is said to be "devastated" by the results of the gender tests.

Semenya is among the millions of people who are born intersexed. According to an online article in Menstuff, "about 1 in 1,500 to one in 2,000 babies are born visibly intersexed. But a lot more people than that are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations, some of which won’t show up until later in life."

This ugly little secret is muffled because the parents of infants who show signs of having both male and female organs, insist, often by strong suggestions of their physicians, to make a decision at birth on what "gender" their child would lead their lives.

When many of these children reach puberty, they show signs of the other "gender" that was snipped, and are often embroiled in sexuality issues.

As the case of Caster who seems to have a vulva, vagina, and cervix, but no ovaries, fallopian and endometrium, she also has ingrown testes that could not have seen.

Caster's gender "anomaly" raises the egregious constrictions of not only gender, but the construction of sex, and sex identity. It is an mind-fuck and social atrocity that we are forcing the bodies of babies to be something that they will grow into not being.

Thank you for Caster's parents who left Caster to be her, a female who wore baggy clothes, flexed her muscles and wore cornrows.

So the overall question is, "What is Caster?" She is my sister and she is a woman.

Below is a rough transcript of Sojourner Truth's Speech and below that is a Youtube video of still pictures of a play called, "Sojourner" by Richard LaMonte Pierce. The music is by "Sweet Honey in the Rock". Sojourner's speech was never recorded because there weren't any recorders in those days, but it was transcribed by another women's activist who was present.

That man over there say

a woman needs to be helped into carriages

and lifted over ditches

and to have the best place everywhere.

Nobody ever helped me into carriages

or over mud puddles

or gives me a best place. . .

And ain't I a woman?

Look at me

Look at my arm!

I have plowed and planted

and gathered into barns

and no man could head me. . .

And ain't I a woman?

I could work as much

and eat as much as a man--

when I could get to it--

and bear the lash as well

and ain't I a woman?

I have born 13 children

and seen most all sold into slavery

and when I cried out a mother's grief

none but Jesus heard me. . .

and ain't I a woman?

that little man in black there say

a woman can't have as much rights as a man

cause Christ wasn't a woman

Where did your Christ come from?

From God and a woman!

Man had nothing to do with him!

If the first woman God ever made

was strong enough to turn the world

upside down, all alone

together women ought to be able to turn it

rightside up again.

You can STILL suck her D*ck!

I just came across this shitty article on Caster Semenya, the South African teen who was given a gender test, unbeknownst to her, by Belgian sports officials about a month ago.

The test was given to prove that she was female because according to European "officials" her muscular build and deep voice brought question to see if she was really the gender she claimed to be, especially after she won a gold medal in a track and field event.

The article highlights a makeover that was given to the Semenya which included a curly weave, accessories, make-up and a dress.

The author of the article focused on her hair and dress by remarking, "For the shoot Semenya sported a less ambiguous hair style, a designer black dress, jewelry, makeup and nail polish. Despite what you think about the whole situation..."

Then he goes on to say, "it's safe to say that this is the first time that Semenya has truly looked like an 18-year old woman. "

First, it is not safe to say those remarks, it actually is quite ignorant and culturally insensitive for you to call traditional black hairstyles "gender ambiguous" when it is apparent you don't know shit about black hair.

Caster's hair style was braided in the tradition of South African young women who are unmarried and are still in school, or of school age.

If you would've known, Chris Chase, or at least did some research, you would've wrote with a wider cultural understanding that braids are worn in various ways to symbolize certain status.

And if you would've looked into the hairstyles of your forebears, long, hair was worn by both men and women in Europe, as well as skirts.

Furthermore, there was a huge oversight by the author. He quoted Caster as saying that she would wear more skirts if she could. To him this suggested that she was really buckling to pressure to "look and dress" like a woman. To me, Caster's remark implies financial hardship and the inability to buy fancy dress. And the last time I checked the Semenya family lived in a Shanty Town.

Clothes are a luxury to her, like most black South Africans who have been living in abject poverty and underrepresentation even after Apartheid. And perhaps certain clothes are for survival, especially when rape is a major issue in black South Africa.

So a European fashion statement might not be Caster's priority or even not a care that she must ascribe to a foreign fashion sense that is tied to a gender status she will never be based on the mere fact that she is black.

Overall, in spite of its flaws and ignorance of this article, it proves my point that gender is a social construction.

As a journalism and media studies critic, this report also proves that the news is BIAS and BULL.

Wearing a dress and make-up does not make you look like a woman or become a woman! It is really based on a society's standards of femininity and masculinty.

Mr. Chase, if your fashion and beauty expertise about Semenya's dress, makeup and skirt have transformed her into a woman, than, go choke on his pu$$ie hair.

Or maybe prefer a big butt and a smile. You'd grab a brother in kilt whose cheeks can warm you on a breezy day.

Ahh, I see you drooling. It's okay, tell'em EcoSoul hooked y'all up. Oh yeah and Caster says choke on a fat ounce of truth, and read some books you dumb ass.

Blog on...your writing gives me material to work with. EcoScI

Please suck her D*@!

In era of post-race (bwa-ha-ha), we still have the looming prejudices around sexuality, in particular, a post-Victorian, Puritanical society that judges women and men by skewed conceptions called femininity and masculinity.

Currently, South-African teenager and recent track gold metalist, Caster Semenya, is under a gender test to see if she really is "female". Sports officials expressed "concern" due to her muscular build, deep voice, and reports of vastly improving in her running times.

Out of all the things, the accusation is that the "chick has a dick".

There are several issues that I see.

One, from a European perspective, black women's femininity and body aesthetics has been historically linked to animalistic, primitive, and "masculine" traits.

Two, the fallacy that women cannot achieve physical feats as men.

Three, the idea of physical charateristics of "masculine" and "feminine". Also, the whole idea of "masculine" being a "man's thing" and the same for feminine. To me, this is what has a lot of folk messed up. Just because a female has a deep voice, does not situate her as a "man" or trying to be a "man," but it still can be considered a masculine trait.

What do I mean? In America, there have been these strict boxes of what a man should do and what is masculine. As well as women. The whole term "gender" is socially constructed, meaning that someone placed parameters, behaviors, and perspectives on what a gender is and how one fits into it. Therefore, anything outside of that is an outcast, an abnormality.

So if a guy who looks like Ving Rhames is seen with a hot pink apron, cooking dinner for a group of men, then he is termed as a gay male, automatically. But what is wrong with pink on chocolate skin, and a man with culinary skills who cooks for his brothers?

Just a rant, but a valid one. ecoSi blog on...