Questions Regarding Gender
Their careers ended abruptly at the time that sex verification was introduced. Critics have suggested that the Press sisters were actually male, or perhaps hermaphrodites. Another allegation was that they were being injected with male hormones in order to make them stronger. Detractors called them the "Press Brothers". Both sisters had left the sporting scene by the time that gender verification for all international sporting female events was made mandatory in 1966 (curtailed in Sydney in 2000) . Some Western newspapers took that as a confession by the Soviet Union, but Russian newspapers still deny the allegations.
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Famous quotes containing the words questions and/or gender:
“The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions ... but by iron and blood.”
—Otto Von Bismarck (1815–1898)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)