Imane Khelif Is Not a Man Just Because She Doesn’t Fit Western Beauty Standards
The way the internet treats Imane Khelif makes non-white women question their femininity
When I was a child, my uncle visited us in Nigeria to learn more about the country his sister had moved to.
He took away two insights. One, that in his opinion, Nigerian women look like men and two, that white, red-haired people should not expose themselves to the African sun without sunscreen. They burn to a crisp.
That was over 40 years ago, but I still remember the phone call from Austria in which he told us that he had brought back a festering sunburn from our last trip to the beach.
And I distinctly remember how sad I felt at his comment about Nigerian women.
It made me question if I would ever be perceived as beautiful. Or whether my darker skin and non-white features would exclude me from femininity.
If you've been following all the drama around this year's Olympics — and there's been plenty of it — you've heard about the controversy surrounding Algerian boxer Imane Khelif's boxing match against Italian Angela Carini.
The short story is that Khelif won the match after Carini bowed out after 46 seconds. Her nose hurt too badly after a blow. In an interview after the match, Carini cried and claimed she had never been hit so hard in her life.
That could have been it. But what followed was a vile right-wing misogynistic misinformation campaign against the Algerian boxer.
Right-wing pundits on the internet and in conservative media started calling her a man, intersex, trans and whatever vile slur conservatives come up with when a woman doesn’t fit their idea of femininity.
The unfounded claim that she has XY chromosomes made the rounds on social media and has since become firmly anchored in the public discourse.
Even the currently most prominent transphobe, J.K. Rowling — formerly known as the woman who gave us Harry Potter — felt the need to chime in and spread misinformation on the other prominent transphobe's social media platform.
Twice:
Khelif is not a man. Never has been. She was born a girl, assigned female at birth, and raised as a girl. She has never been anything but a woman.
Both her family and Algeria’s Olympic committee (COA) have denounced the allegation she is a man.
But the Internet doesn’t care about these facts.
Thousands of social media posts now claim she has XY chromosomes or that she is intersex. If that is the case, no evidence has been produced to corroborate this.
Remember, she's from a country notoriously hostile against any form of queerness. It will be a cold day in hell before a country with such a hard anti-trans stance sends a trans woman to the Olympics.
Or anywhere else in an official capacity.
Khelif is no newcomer to Olympic boxing. She made her debut at the 2020 Games in Tokyo. She reached the quarter-finals and lost 5–0 to the eventual winner Kellie Harrington.
Nobody wondered if she was a man when she lost.
The hateful Internet mob is fueled by the fact that the International Boxing Association (IBA) randomly disqualified Khelif and a second woman from the 2023 IBA championship tournament, stating she failed an unspecified eligibility test.
They never disclosed why she was suspended or which test—if any—she failed. It’s all just “Trust me, bro.”
Yet, there is information that Russian IBA chairman and Putin Buddy, Umar Kremlev, took this shady decision alone. After or likely because Khelif defeated a Russian boxer. According to NBC,
The IBA, whose president is Umar Kremlev of Russia and is an associate of President Vladimir Putin, claimed the fighters had failed unspecified eligibility tests. The decision came shortly after Khelif beat Russian boxer Azalia Amineva, who was previously undefeated.
Not sus at all, right?
Not surprisingly, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) withdrew recognition of the IBA in 2023. The reasons they gave were corruption concerns and potential match-fixing.
Go figure.
The IOC has released an official statement confirming that according to the guidelines for Olympic participation, Khelif is a woman and eligible to compete as such:
All athletes participating in the boxing tournament of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations,…We have seen in reports misleading information about two female athletes competing at the Olympic Games Paris 2024… The IOC is saddened by the abuse that the two athletes are currently receiving.
Yes, seeing the misinformation about Khelif making the rounds on social media is both sad and aggravating.
It doesn't matter how many people officially confirm that she’s a woman. Conservatives have found a target and are foaming at the mouth to destroy her.
They keep commenting that she has XY chromosomes, is trans or intersex on any post or article about her. They even post manipulated pictures of her that are supposed to show she has a penis.
According to the BBC, even Carini has since apologized for her behavior and statements after the match, saying:
“Actually, I want to apologise to her and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke.”
But the lack of evidence doesn't matter to the rabid mass. Khelif's physical appearance doesn't conform to conventional white beauty standards. I'm sure my uncle would have said she looks like a man.
I can't imagine how painful this public outrage about her appearance is for Khelif.
For anyone, like me or her, who doesn't conform to these standards, this discussion is another low blow to their self-esteem.
In her paper "The Imposition of White Beauty Standards on Black Women," Gettysburg College's Sabrina E. Robinette writes:
There has been a long history of Western ideals of attractiveness determining a woman’s worth, and these ideals become even more harmful when they impact black women’s self-confidence and make them believe their worth is equivalent to how well they match these ideals.
Yes, if you're a non-white woman in a culture that centers white femininity as the standard, you’ll have a hard time coming to terms with your beauty.
I've been there. Growing up, it wasn't only my uncle's remark that made me question myself.
I didn’t have “good hair.” My hair was short and curly, not sleek and bouncy like my white classmates. My father cut it in the same style as my brothers'. My classmates' comments that little African girls with their short hair are indistinguishable from little boys didn’t help.
As a teenager, my breasts were too big, my frame too robust, and my skin too dark to see myself reflected in any of the women in the beauty magazines.
I found solace by centering my self-confidence around my brain, not my body.
And maybe this is what we should all do: abandon superficial beauty standards and judge people by other measures.
But this isn’t the world we live in. Thanks to social media, the world relies increasingly on the impact of images and external beauty. It's hard to convey to young, non-white women that they shouldn't base their self-worth on their appearance.
African women try way too hard to conform to Western beauty standards.
They bleach their skin with toxic creams to appear lighter and more "desirable." The skin-lightening product market was worth a mind-boggling $15 billion in 2023.
But it's not only African women; Indian and Asian women also poison themselves to appear lighter. Colorism is rampant within these communities. Little girls with darker skin are made to feel “less than” by their families and peers.
But it doesn't end there. African — and African-American — women torture their hair with straightening chemicals or wear expensive wigs because their natural nappy hair is deemed undesirable or unprofessional.
Anything to feel beautiful in the way Western media dictates a woman must look.
I wonder how many little black and brown girls and young women are now anxiously comparing their features to Khelif's. Doubting they're beautiful. Afraid they'll also end up being called a man?
I feel heartbroken for them because I remember how hard it is to feel confident in a world that makes you feel undesirable.
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since I wrote this piece the IBA and Umar Kremlev, head of the IBA and Putin's pal, have been caught in a lie. They began this lie to try to discredit the IOC. Why? Because the IOC dumped the IBA last year and isn't allowing athletes to compete using the Russian flag. Khelif is a victim of Russian disinformation. source:BBC
https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/articles/cq5dd2lz8y8o
Hi Ronke, Raveen here from Medium and Substack. Nice to see you on this platform.
'Conservatives have found a target and are foaming at the mouth to destroy her.'
Far-right-wing, strongly conservative beliefs are so damaging because they appeal to people's strong emotions and insecurities....hence, they're quite effective in manipulating people and turning them against each other.