Originally Posted by schnee
The woman became a freak in her quest to cheat her way to athletic glory, and that deserves all the mockery we can heap upon her. Deal.
Stuff and nonsense. Tammy Thomas may be deserving of scorn and mockery, but harping on her appearance entirely misses the point. Her life is a shambles of her own making. Make a mockery of that, if you must. Personally, I'm not into demonizing and dehumanizing people who've made mistakes, especially given how much she already has and how much she will continue to suffer. But fair enough. Still, stop pretending that this is really about steroid abuse. What if she had still cheated, if all the facts of the case were the same, but she had come out the other end looking like a beautiful, feminine woman? Would she somehow be
less deserving of scorn? Once again, her appearance is academic to the other facts.
Originally Posted by DrPete
Why is the harshness of the media against celebrity/athlete men more acceptable than that against women? I'm not saying that either is right, but I tend to agree with schnee on the point that this is something she knowingly did to herself in order to cheat in her sport on a world stage. In this case, said stupidity made her look decidedly male, and that's the first, most obvious thing you notice. In fact, I think the vast majority of female athletes would look at her pic and think twice about steroids.
Eh? Did you read the linked articles? They have not been kind. They've also been able to refrain, thanks to a certain amount of journalistic integrity, from making the story about how "OMG TAMMY THOMAS LOOKS LIKE A MAN!!!11" I thought I made this perfectly clear: there is criticism to be heaped in mountains upon Tammy Thomas. How many jokes were there about Floyd Landis' appearance? I recall few. I recall lots, though, having to do with his character and sportsmanship (e.g. the LiveStrong bracelet that was Photoshopped to read "Cheat to Win"). By the way, I have no intent to rant - what good would that do? I'm trying to make you guys think a little bit about what's going on here.
The feminist angle here is not that women are somehow above harsh criticism. Indeed, we would be on shaky ground if we took that position. The feminist angle is that Tammy Thomas, like any man, deserves to be criticized on the merits of her character, for which her appearance is largely irrelevant. I have yet to see any substantive criticism of her on the actual merits of the case. Why is that? Cause it's easier to say "she looks like a man!" and laugh at that.
Look, I've known a few masculine-looking women. Some of them were just women who look more masculine. Some of them used to be men who realized that they were really women on the inside, and took steps to begin to bring the outside in line with their true selves. None of them looked the way they did because of steroid abuse. And before everyone goes and jumps off that cliff, I am NOT saying that Tammy Thomas is transgendered. Just trying to make a point about how relevant all this nonsense about appearance is.