My first day as a woman and I'm getting hot flashes.

I recently bribed one of my besties to go sit through an hour of some woman talking. In order to obtain extra credit for a class that I could use some help in, we were required to attend a lecture on campus and write a brief summary. I have been offered similar extra credit in the past, during my decade as a college student, but have not even considered going until now. Why would I now decide to attend something that seems like it would end up being a good nap? Partially because I really want to do well in this class and partly because of the topic of the talk.

"Sex testing, Real Women."

If that doesn't peak at least a slight part of your interest for a boring campus lecture, I don't know what would. Hey, they're right... sex sells. Even if you have no idea what the hell it is that they mean at first.

Dr. Cynthia Pelak, a professor at New Mexico State University, was the speaker. If you closed your eyes and listened to her talk, you could have put money on the idea that you were listening to Joan Cusack. She sounded JUST like her. Anyway, the topic of her lecture was about the history and future of sex testing in athletes. (Did you hear about the 19 year old, South African, who failed the sex test in the 2009 Summer Olympics?) I had heard a little bit about this stuff in the past but I was pretty intrigued as to where it would go in an hour long speech.

She first started with the history of the Olympics and the relation of women to these historical games. I was unaware, as you probably are, that women couldn't even WATCH the games in the ancient 7th and 8th centuries. There was a proclamation that claimed women could be put to death for trying to sneak a peek. More modern games, circa 1896, claimed women could watch but definitely not participate. (I did a little "googling" later and found that these Olympics were held in Athens, as they were when the games first came to fruition. The only legal participants were free male athletes. I keep picturing the slaves in Gladiator.) It wasn't until 1976 that the Olympic Games included 20% women athletes.

Some reasons why I found this lecture to be amusing:

• Women could not participate in sports in the "olden days" because it was said that they were too frail and their ovaries would shrivel up.
• It was obscene for women to do anything that required their legs be spread apart in public. Like, for example, bike riding. Whoa. How slutty of a woman to ride a bike.
• A woman or two passed out after running the 800m. So, what should they do to solve this problem? They canceled the event because women obviously cannot run 800m in a timely manner. That makes so much sense.
• The first method used to make sure that women were not men pretending to be women? Get this: THE PEEK AND POKE METHOD. (1966ish) The very immature part of me finds this to be hilarious. What small mature part of me that exists thinks this is absolutely humiliating and ridiculous. Keep in mind that there was no testing to see if women were posing as men.

There were a lot of disturbing facts presented throughout her discussion. For instance, LOTS of racism. Black women weren't considered "ladies" until the womens rights movement, so they were able to become athletic without it seeming un-ladylike. Men didn't undergo any gender testing (and still don't.) She gave a lot of other details that become boring after about the second one. After years of chromosome testing, they finally did away with mandated gender testing in 2000.

My thoughts? (I know you were wondering.)
First of all: When you get into the nitty gritty of the whole thing... the meat of the dissection... it's ridiculous. If I was an Olympic athlete (ya know, I'm so good at competing in so many athletic events... it was once on my options list...), I wouldn't want a man to be competing in the same event and posing as a woman. It would be unfair. I'm sure someone out there, cough cough women's rights people, that would disagree with where I am going with this. Generally speaking, men are not built like women. They excel at different things and most have greater athletic ability. Not all, obviously, but most. Funny how this goes all the way back to belief about reasons why man and woman were created. Hunters, gatherers, and Susie homemakers.

These obnoxious women kept raising their hands with comments (not questions as she asked us to give her) regarding their thoughts on this whole ordeal. 
P.S., woman with your hair in a bun and lipstick on... You can't sit there and talk about how unfair it is for women to be treated any less when our society is not ready for women to be more dominant than men. Simple and true fact. Women make less money because the majority of the gender population takes time off to pop out babies. Women excel in areas of running a family and household. That is not to say, however, that women can't be Betty Badass when it comes to sports. I know plenty of girls that would school a boy at basketball, running, ninja stars, whatever. With that being said... let them gender test you, I say! Say you're a woman and proud of it! I realize that this seems terribly controversial, but with gender reassignment surgeries, technically there could be a guy pretending to be a woman in a competitive sport. For most of these events, that would give them an unfair advantage.

My tiny disclaimer here: I feel like there should be a way of proving it without discriminating against those who have deficiencies and other health problems from birth. Caster Semenya, the South African girl who failed her gender testing, was found later to be legitimately female and was cleared to competitvely run again. How embarrassing is that? "Oh, we're sorry to tell you that our tests say you're not a girl." "Oh wait, it's cool. We are gonna consider you a girl again." I would be running around that track with a finger in the air.

Also, the girlfriend who I dragged to the lecture with me and I, decided a comedic movie should be made regarding this sex testing. I picture Seth Rogan or Jack Black becoming a woman to compete in the Olympics. Surely you can see the humor in this. If not, get your panties out of a wad. Or manties...