The Western concept of what a woman should look like is at the heart of the Caster Semenya gender controversy.
The 18-year-old South African runner won a gold medal in the 800-meter race at the world championships in Berlin last week, slicing off more than a second from her previous world record.
Sure she looks as feminine as Samuel Jackson in a frock.
And because she didn’t wear makeup, have painted fingernails and didn’t remove her wispy facial hair, the world wants to know what’s in her shorts.
She has been targeted for a gender test by the world track governing body and according to media reports, “her dramatic improvement, muscular build and deep voice sparked speculation about her gender.”
So what is at work here?
Sexism, racism or a quest to stop men masquerading as women in international sporting events.
Africa thinks it’s the former and is rallying behind its new teen track queen while a battery of tests are being imposed on the bewildered Semenya to find out exactly what kind of family jewels she possesses.
In today’s world, there are many shades of grey on the line that demarcates a man and a woman and these tests are complicated and many a time inconclusive.
Semenya’s father, Jacob, however knows his girl.
“She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times,” he told the media masses.
The Semenya saga sheds light on the assessment of women in many parts of the developing world, whose physical appearance is measured by standards based on Western views of beauty.
In China for instance, the quest to attain a Western woman’s features has seen more than 20,000 Chinese women flock to just one public hospital in Shanghai alone in 2008.
Beijing estimates that its women spend about US$2.4 billion every year for eyelid surgery, nose jobs, cheek implants and breast augmentation to look like their Hollywood idols.
Across Asia and especially in India, the passion for pale skin has resulted in an annual multi-billion dollar industry.
One study reported by CNN said more than half of all Asians, mostly women, aged 25 to 34 years, use skin whiteners on a regular basis.
There is also incredible social pressure on women in Asia to be extremely thin and those who cannot attain this standard are constantly reminded of it via the fashion magazines and TV ads.
Caster Semenya is in trouble because her beauty is being held in the eye of the Western beholder.
Her story is an ugly reflection of our superficial values.
Few will remember her for what she did.
Many will remember her for what she looks like.

Side bar:

Athletic gender benders

STELLA WALSH: After her 1980 murder, the 1932 Olympic gold medal sprinter was found to have had male sex organs.

SANTHI SOUNDARARAJAN: The 800-metre silver medallist at the 2006 Asian Games was stripped of the medal after failing a sex test. She was found to have a chromosomal abnormality.

EWA KLOBUKOWSKA: At the 1967 European Games, the Olympic 100-metre bronze medallist became first to fail a gender test.

HEIDI KRIEGER: 1980s shot-putter given steroids as part of East Germany’s systemic doping. She later had sex-change surgery.

TAMARA & IRINA PRESS: Sisters won Olympic gold in shot put and hurdles for the Soviet Union but retired when sex tests began in 1966. Colleague claimed Tamara was a hermaphrodite.

RENEE RICHARDS: In 1976, the American tennis player was revealed to have been a man who had a sex-change operation. Richards won a court ruling permitting her to compete in the U.S. Open.