Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is a medical term for a condition that young athletes know all too well: concussions by head trauma. C.T.E. made headlines again earlier this month, when retired soccer star Brandi Chastain signed off the main organ in the central nervous system, the brain, to scientific research after her death. It is her hope that her brain will add substantial findings to an already small pool of women’s brains.
Chastain is dedicating her brain post-mortem to Boston University, the leading laboratory studying CTE. Last year alone, they diagnosed 87 of 91 former NFL players with the condition. The effects of CTE include severe mood swings, vertigo, depression, and dementia. Chastain has seen some of these effects herself, telling the New York Times that sometimes she will turn the corner into a room and forget why she did so. This is an unusual habit at 47 years old, but not so unusual considering Chastain championed the moves of heading the ball in her game over and over. However, throughout her career, Chastain was never diagnosed with a concussion.
Unfortunately, cases of CTE are diagnosed after the fact, but headgear and rules of a game can be built to reflect the common causes of it. While BU has studied 307 brains to establish the causes and effects of CTE, these brains come from one very distinct pool. Only seven of these brains were female.
Chastain is a celebrity endorsement in an issue that has taken root among the medical sports community. In late February of this year, a nonprofit hosted a summit titled “International Summit On Female Concussion and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)” seeking to foster attention to head trauma that is specific to women’s experiences. But while nonprofit efforts and Chastain’s dedication may be seen as morally permissible, especially to women, it is important to realize what narrative these events may be creating.
These efforts may be gendered in their nature. While well intentioned, the way the conversation and research about them is formulated may be fostering hyper-femininity in sports and undermining the efforts made by women in their game. Research has shown that women suffer from CTE and concussions in higher rates than men, and also take longer to recover. Little research has been done to explain this, but the efforts publicly available cite less muscle in the neck in females, making them more susceptible. Furthermore, research suggests that the inevitable menstrual cycle also makes women more likely to suffer longer effects than those of men.
So while the cause is well intentioned, the small amount of gender research on head trauma may create a narrative in which women are told biologically, instead of just socially, that they are inferior. One study also notes that women have smaller brain size, which has no correlation to intelligence, but may inherently create that association. Even the international summit hosted to increase awareness was funded by a nonprofit titled “Pink Concussions”.
Chastain told the Times that this is important to her as a woman because “[women are] giving just as much as the guys… And there’s nobody saying, ‘What’s it doing to them?’” But in an industry that is funded on the success of male teams and famous players, it is important to ask how this research is furthering the assumed skill levels of men and women in sports.
Houghtalen is a sophomore Prindle intern from Noblesville, Indiana.