Recently, the International Swimming Federation (FINA) rejected an application to officially recognize swim caps designed to accommodate thick, curly natural black hair. Soul Cap, a British company, filed the application. It hoped that swim caps designed specifically for the needs of black swimmers would make the sport more accessible to them. However, thanks to FINA’s ruling, black athletes cannot use Soul Cap products at this summer’s Olympic games, or in any other swimming competitions.
Soul Cap told the BBC that FINA rejected the application because the caps “do not conform to the shape of the head.” This prompted Molly Wood, a host of one of my favorite Podcasts, Make Me Smart, to claim the rejection was based on “phrenology”.
In the midst of my concern about a ruling that so clearly inhibits black swimmers, I was also disappointed I didn’t know what phrenology meant. Enter Merriam-Webster.
What is phrenology?
phrenology, derived from the Greek Greek phren-, phrḗn “seat of the passions, mind, wits” + o + logy; the study of the conformation and especially the contours of the skull based on the former belief that they are indicative of mental faculties and character
Bias against black swimmers
Yikes. I’m not sure FINA made its decision based on phrenology, but I am concerned this ruling will continue to limit black access to the sport. My daughter swam for years with a USA swimming team, and, the sport, at least in Virginia, is decidedly white. With a smattering of Asians.
People with natural black hair must braid it, or use special oil, to get the regular, smaller swim caps on. If their hair gets wet, they must condition it and comb it out, a time consuming process. According to the story on BBC.com, British swim coach Tony Cronin says the FINA decision reveals “misunderstanding and and ignorance. “
CBS.com reported that Soul Cap recently partnered with Alice Dearing, the first black British swimmer to qualify for the Olympics. Dearing said in a Soul Cap sponsored post on Instagram:
{Soul Cap is] always looking for ways to improve their caps, making sizes for all and dispelling the myth that swimming equipment cannot be inclusive. You CAN find a cap which will fit your braids, locs, ‘fro, curly hair in; feels good to be able to say that.
Alice Dearing, Olympic swimmer, team Britain
Dearing co-founded the U.K.’s Black Swimming Association. She has been trying to increase awareness and accessibility to swimming for years. FINA’s ruling has disappointed her and many other black swimmers.
What word from recent news stories has you stumped? And how do you feel about this ruling?
Thanks for getting nerdy with me!
I have a distant uncle who was known as the “first man hanged in Middlesex County” (Ontario, Canada). I’ve done a little research and I think the poor guy was set-up and the real murderer was his neighbour – who was actually an ancestor of my ex-husband. (Not relevant, but I always think interesting.)
ANYWAY – that’s a lead-in to tell you about his head. Phrenology was all the rage at the time of Cornelius’ hanging, and some “professors” took his head on lecture tour, showing people the shape of a criminal’s head. (People will see what they want to see.)
Poor Cornelius died without issue, but after his head toured and then sat in a museum display for nearly a hundred years, some relatives –interested in genealogy– petitioned to have his head back and buried it in a family plot.
Yes, phrenology is part of my family lore. 🙂
Very interesting- and somewhat disturbing- Debbie!
I truly enjoy your posts. Language is fascinating to me. The old saying is true: the pen is mightier than the sword,” though, admittedly, the sword is generally quicker!
I especially enjoy etymology and frequently reference etymonline.com to see the tale by which words came to mean what they do today. Furthermore, as a pastor, my etymological research generally leads me to Greek which is the original language of the New Testament.
The “phren-” root meaning “mind” finds use in the medical world in the word diaphragm. I do not know how much knowledge of our “innards” the ancient Greeks had. But they did understand that there was a difference between the organs above and below the diaphragm. I once read that at least some of the ancients considered that the brain was an organ for cooling the body, which was plausible from an external view seeing that due to the massive blood flow going to the head. much heat can be lost when not wearing a hat on a cold day. So it would seem that they did not attribute cognition to the brain.
The diaphragm separates the the heart and lungs from the rest of our viscera. Interestingly, feelings of compassion, which we normally attribute to the heart, was attributed to the “bowels” in Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek, eliciting stifled chuckles from us teenagers when we encountered, ” My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him,” in the King James version of Song of Solomon 5.4. We also found it funny when Paul would express that his “bowels” had been refreshed by the kindness of the saints toward him.
But “bowels” has a more specific meaning that in times past. Any of the organs below the diaphragm would have been considered “bowels” in the ancient languages. For example, God promised the patriarchs children from their own bowels and the Psalmist spoke of being born from his mothers bowels. So the ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek words translated bowels in KJV of the Bible referred to any of the organs below the diaphragm.
And that brings us back to the phreno- root in Koine Greek. According to one Greek scholar, there is not single English word that can capture the entire sense of the Greek word for it combines both the cognitive and emotional aspects of thinking, which makes sense since the diaphragm is the separating line between the bodily parts they associated with emotions and cognitive activity. It would not be until later years, after it was discovered that the brain was the seat of cognitive thought, that the “phreno- root would become associated with the head.
Phrenology was a plausible but ill-informed attempt to predict the various mental strengths and weaknesses by the shape of the head, assuming that various parts of the brain controlled different aspects of of our mental processes. Larger portions of the brain in this or that area was supposed to indicate greater prowess in that aspect of thought. Unfortunately, this was often put to racist uses. They were correct that there is a correlation between size and the tendency to excel in the area of thinking represented by whatever part of the brain is larger. For example, an larger amygdala does bear some correlation to a tendency to anxiety. Also, a humans significantly larger pre-frontal cortex has been attributed to our dominance as a species. But, the minor differences in the shapes of our skulls will not reveal any special abilities among humans.
And this brings us to the “soul cap.” I looked at some pictures of the soul cap. I suppose that competitive swimmers – especially female swimmers – wear caps during competition because their hair creates a great deal of drag in the water. A cap that reduces its volume plus “smooths” the contour would reduce that drag. I do not see anything about the soul cap that would provide an unfair advantage to those who wear them. It’s not like they put a point on the front of them to make their heads more streamlined. The soul cap grants no advantage to the “black” swimmer over the non-black, straight-haired swimmer who can easily stuff her hair under a standard cap.
I do not see anything necessarily racist in this as though the “deciders” said, “We must make sure that the black athletes do not come to dominate this sport as they have so many other sports.” Rather, I think it is simply the significant amount of inertia in governing bodies whether they govern politics or sports. As a conservative, I tend to favor such inertia so as to avoid wild swings in law. But when we conserve for no other reason than conserving, we are not being wise. The fact that the soul cap does not conform to the head is irrelevant to the reason for a rule about swimming caps. Swimming caps reduce drag by reducing the size of hair and the drag created by the complex eddies created by long or curly hair. The soul cap accomplishes that for those with long and/or curly hair, but the fact that is has an extra area in the back to contain longer and or curlier hair does not create an artificial advantage to the swimmer who uses one as opposed to the shorter-haired or smoother-haired competitors. The soul cap actually creates more drag than teh normal swimming cap.
But if I were a female swimmer I would just shave my head for competition until some “phrenologist” could examine the rule makers skulls and discover they were severely lacking in that area of the brain that enables a person to exercise common sense! LOL! Hopefully, the rule-makers will reexamine this and reverse their decision.
As to words in the news that have me stumped: I am not so much stumped by any words but am distressed when it seems that news-reporters misuse words in order to advance a particular agenda. Right now, the confusion between the words sex and gender allows the agenda-pushers to be vague in their statements. I have read that, at one time, gender was only a linguistic construct applied to grammar and sex was a biological description, I do not know if this is true. But I do know that if we are to have a constructive conversation of the the present gender issues, we must come up with some agreed-upon definitions for words like sex and gender with clear delineation of their meanings. As applied to biological beings, it seems reasonable to me to to consider sex to be an objective biological reality based upon one’s chromosomes while gender is used to describe the attitudes, conduct, feelings, etc. With only very few exceptions, all humans are either xx or xy which objectively determines the sex of the individual. So the sex scale should not be a scale but an either or: female of male. Everyone is on or the other, provable by a genetic test.
But gender could be recognized as more a spectrum ranging from feminine to masculine. There have always been Tomboys: females who expressed an unusual level of what are considered to be more “masculine.” And there have always been “sissy-boys” or just “sissies.” Both of these terms are pejorative, but they do how that there have always been boys who acted more like girls. They were biologically male but had an unusually high level of feminine characteristics.
But, Tomboys are still female and sissies are still male. We might want to do away with those labels, but the existence of those labels does show that ones sex does not necessarily determine one’s gender if we define sex as an objective biological reality and gender as a set of attitudes, actions and feeling that are traditionally identified with on or the other gender.
Also, given the present hubbub over gender issues, I believe it would be wise to develop a set of genderless pronouns. We do have a set of neuter pronouns, but they are considered to be not only genderless but also impersonal. So, a set of genderless but personal pronouns should be developed so that we can refer to one another without igniting an argument over sex/gender issues.
You are good with words. I nominate you to develop a single set of non-gendered personal pronouns which can be applied to anyone without causing offense! LOL!
I also think we need a movement to re-introduce a distinct singular and plural set of second-person pronouns. 🙂
Wow! This is a lot of wonderful information and some interesting thoughts. You are right, words are fascinating, and yet our currently charged social environment show us that we lack appropriate language to discuss important issues. I thank you for your nomination 😉 but politely decline as this is an area I need to read and discuss more to fully understand. Thanks for stopping by!
I am gratified that you took the time to read and RESPOND to my comment. However, I am quite aware that my comments are almost always long and often rambling. My congregation will attest that, while the word “brief” is in my vocabulary, it is rarely used, and when it is, it is mostly meaningless.
My father was a stickler for using the proper words and even though my personality more matches my mother, his insistence on proper word usage did rub off on me. Therefore, I always appreciate the efforts of those who seek out the proper meaning and use of words. Conversely, my anger is aroused most by those who I detect are misusing words in a way that makes people think they are speaking truthfully when, in fact, they are speaking deceptively.
Just as an aside to show my father’s linguistic strictness: In the early 60’s, my sisters and I watched a movie entitled, “Mr. Smith Takes a Vacation.” At least I think that was the title. It starred Jimmy Stewart who played the part of a somewhat irascible man who went on vacation with his grown children and grandchildren. The grandchildren referred to him as “Boompa.” The younger of my two sisters really liked that word and decided that if she were the first of us to have children, she would teach her children to call my dad, “Boompa.”
In 1971, that sister gave birth to the first of my parents’ grandchildren, so my parents became “Granny and Boompa”, which to this day is said as though it were one word.
Now fast forward to 1990 or so. I have left my home in WV to to pastor a church in NW IA. My youngest, a daughter (Mary), is 6 or 7. She has a friend (Missy) the same age who lives across the street. At school, Missy learns that Mary’s grandfather is coming for a visit. So, sometime after school is out, Missy comes over to see him. Missy was a rather “forward” child with hardly any gate on her mouth. She craved personal connections and the affection that often comes with such connections. After Mary introduces her to my dad, Missy asks, “Can you be my grandfather too?”
I am standing there watching this unfold. My father was a very loving man but not a sentimental man, so I was interested to see how he would handle this.. He thinks for a few seconds before giving his answer. “No, I cannot be your grandfather, for a grandfather is a certain thing, and I am not that to you.” I felt bad for Missy for I knew that she would be overly affected by such a rejection. But my dad went on. “But I can be your Boompa.”
So, from that point on, my dad was Missy’s Boompa. All of our children moverd back to the southeast, so Missy lives closer to us that any of our children. Therefore, we see her from time to time. She stops at our house as though it is her own. And she still refers to my parents as Granny and Boompa.
I find it enjoyable to reflect on those seemingly inconsequential events in one’s life that have lifelong consequences. I barely remember the movie – I was likely 7 or 8. But some Hollywood writer came up with a with “Boompa” to give his irascible character one more thing to be upset about. It fell on the ears of a 9 or 10-year-old girl who vowed to use it as a name for her children to call her father. Thirty-ish years later, that made-up Hollywood name for a grandfather was used by my father to stay true to his linguistic principles while at the same time, opening the door to a young girl so as let her into his orb of love and affection. And now, another 30 years later, I am writing about it and there are many now-adults who, when they think of the word “Boompa,” are filled with the sense of warmth, kindness, and wisdom my father represented to them.
I am willing to bet the Hollywood writer had no idea how his made-up word would be used. And to top it off, I Googled the word “Boompa” and discovered that many have appropriated it as a moniker for their grandfather – and always in an affectionate sense!
Words. How powerful they can be – for good or evil! May many in our culture learn to use them yo build up rather than tear down.
You need feel no obligation to approve this comment for posting on your page, though you can if you want to. I just thought it might interest you. Had there been a way to send it to you privately, I would have. As much as I like to talk and write, I do try to respect other people’s threads and not take them over.