Next Discussion on 8th August (Saturday) at 4 pm at the Committee Room, Central Library
JNU ML
Uneven Playing Fields
A Discussion on the Representation and Perception of Female Athletic Bodies on the Sports Field and in Sports Fiction
Somrita (Urni) Ganguly
Ph.D. Scholar
CES, SLL&CS
In 2014 Dutee Chand’s name was under consideration for the Commonwealth Games in Glasglow. She had won for herself and India several medals before that as an under-18 athlete. However shortly before the championship she was summoned to Bangalore by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and asked to undergo a series of tests; three days later she was informed that she would not be allowed to compete. A dejected, clueless Chand returned to her hometown in Orissa from the training centre in Bangalore and discovered afterwards from news-channels flashing her face on the television that she had failed the ‘gender test’. A person who grew up as a girl for 18 years was suddenly not considered feminine and female enough. In medical terms it meant that Chand had more than the average acceptable level of testosterone in her body, the male sex hormone; hence she was could not compete as a female athlete any further. Is the gender test mandatory for all athletes? How is this test performed? Since there seems to be a consensus on the average acceptable limit of testosterone in the female athletic body, what is the acceptable average for a male athletic body? Can an athlete “rectify” this “problem” known as hyperandrogenism? Also, what does such a test reveal to us about the way in which the society perceives of the female athletic body?
Through this paper I wish to initiate a discussion around gender politics and the sports field, going back to ancient Olympics and investigating the reason behind the absence of female participants and female spectators in old Olympia; the focus will thence be shifted to contemporary athletes like Dutee Chand, Amelie Mauresmo, Pinki Paramanik, Shanthi Soundarajan and the Williams sisters. This paper will also include a discussion on select literary texts to question whether the individual cases of female athletic triumph are indeed instances of voluntary defiance or whether one can locate a larger changing societal pattern by mapping these success stories.