“What Makes a Woman a Woman?” Versus “Our First Lady of Sport”

Abstract

Caster Semenya, a South African female track and field star from rural Limpopo South Africa, won the IAAF 2009 World Championships in the 800-meter event. She was then subjected to “gender-verification” testing. Media reports, especially in the United States, underscored that Semenya underwent gender-verification testing because of her “deep voice, muscular build, and rapid improvement in times.” Combining content and textual analysis, we conducted a comparative media analysis of the Caster Semenya controversy in the United States and the South African print news media. Results demonstrated that the United States print media coverage framed the controversy in terms of Semenya’s “true” sex, “medicalized” debates about sex testing, and discussed the limitations of medical assessment of male and female bodies in sport. In comparison, South African print media sources focused on human rights, nationalism, and “strategic essentialism” to frame Semenya as a “true” woman defending the nation against a perceived racist assault. We conclude the article with transformative visions of sport rooted in postcolonial feminism and critical feminist studies.