female representation in debate
this has been a recurring topic within the debate community, so i decided to throw in my two cents. (i was running off two hours of sleep and no food writing this, so excuse my terrifyingly horrid syntax and terrible spelling.)
As a minority female policy debater in a competitive state, I can definitively vouch that much less females are in policy debate, nonetheless the national circuit. I’ve had a bunch of coaches try to convince me to go back to Public Forum, just for the sake that policy debate was inherently “masculine”.
“oh, it’s a style of debate for boys. you don’t wanna be stuck there!”
“it’s too tough for a small girl like you to be doing this kind of debate. everyone’s too aggressive and you’re not going to have a good time.”
What i say: bullshit. you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong.
Unlike a plethora of other female debaters, I don’t wear makeup, I opt out of “sexy, glamorous, and attractive” wear during tournaments. And yes, that’s gotten me a lot of negative reviews on my ballot. 26 speaker points, with the comments, “you were being too bitchy during crossfire” (when in reality, my opponents were cutting me off and i was completely fed up), “you should wear more makeup, your acne is showing” (yeah, but have you considered: i don’t want to), “your outfit is too uptight and conservative”, (ok, well, maybe i like it that way). It’s extremely upsetting when a female debater gets judged on a different criterion than someone of the other gender. No one comments on their clothing choice, hairstyle, makeup, or “aggressiveness” during a round.
On the other hand, I’ve had a few other friends that were under similar circumstances. For instance, when they’re wearing some BOMB ASS eyeliner with gorgeous lipstick, the judges would hand out comments like, “you look like you’re looking for trouble”, “you should tone it down”, and “you’re showing too much cleavage and legs, honey”.
Biiiiiiiiiiiitch. Debate is debate. Just because a girl isn’t looking like your standard of perfection doesn’t mean she shouldn’t win the debate or lose speaker points. Appearance and round results should not go hand in hand. My opponents clearly weren’t affected by my choice of clothes, how i did my hair, or how much makeup i’m wearing.
I don’t know if it’s the judging pool or just the community in general, but this sort of negativity and bias is something that’s definitely pushing the debate girls away. They need to get over themselves and suck it up because they don’t get to choose what people look like, but instead listen intently to the round and with an unbiased decision, mark the ballot.
this is something i’ve been hearing a lot. most of the girls in my circuit are more creative than the guys, and they create more unique and squirrely arguments for the team to share. However, since I do policy and it’s partner-based, the rest of the team tends to disagree. For me, my partner is a male of my own age, and he, with the rest of my team, shuts down my argument ideas simply because it’s “weird and hard to argue”. Everything is “hard to argue”, until you actually spend time doing research and cutting cards.
That aside, let’s talk about prep in general.
If you look at the stats, Public Forum has more gender balance than Policy or Lincoln Douglas. Why is that? several studies have shown that the number of girls participating in an event is inversely proportional to the amount of dedication needed for each event. Public Forum’s topic changes every month, and therefore requires less thorough analyses of the topic and research. LD changes every two months.
That’s where it gets interesting.
If you look at the stats, when LD was more traditional (i.e. philosophy, morals), there would be a better gender balance than, say, progressive LD. Likewise, Policy Debate, with a year-round topic, has even less female debaters. As they say, if you see a fellow female policy debater, you should stick together, because of the shared struggles of being a woman in the leagues.
Bottom line is, if it takes more prep and research, there’s less girls. Why is that? We’re obviously not dumb.
This is what I think: Girls, especially in high school, are held to a standard where they’re expected to be more social, study well, and care for their appearances. High school is literally the season where girls give a shit about what they look like, who they’re friends with, and what fun they’re going to have afterschool. They realize that doing so much research is actually a waste of time because the perceived benefits of debate can be achieved within 1-2 years of competition. By having the needs of balancing their life and debate as well, girls either opt out of the difficult events, or switch to something easier like PF or IE.
By having a social standard to meet (beauty, socializing, academics), girls tend to have more pressure to be able to organize their life and get their shit together.
For example, you see girls praising the girls that “give no shits”, because it’s something that’s so tough to achieve with the normative standard for girls and “getting their shit together. However, if you see a guy that “give no shits", it’s not empowerment anymore. By that point, it’ll just be something normal because boys are just boys. I’m not trying to push into the feminism aspects of debate, but if you look at it, girls are expected to pursue more things that are unique to them rather than the guys that only need to excel in stuff like sports and music.
Girls get so much pressure in the debate community to be the epitome of perfect. If someone calls you a bitch after a round, they tend to not put you in a negative light since you were being “too pushy” and aggressive. However, if a guy speaks up for himself, it’s applauded as being “aggressive” and a self advocate. There’s two definitions of aggressive in the debate world. One is for the girls, which describe them as savage bitches that are rude and snotty as hell. Another one is for the male debater, which describes them as someone that knows their shit and is a responsible debater.
This puts them in a double bind. If girls are quiet, the judges and everyone will want to walk all over them and would get comments like “you’re too quiet, if you’re too shy then stop doing debate, it might not be right for you”, but if they’re just a bit louder than they usually are, they’d get things like, “tone it DOWN! You’re being too aggressive and pushy. Let other people talk.”
I’ve seen girls made fun of at camp for either 1) trying to hard, or 2) not trying at all. The boys make fun and jeer at them for being an “overachieving nerd” when they prep. They call her lazy fucks when she decides to take a break from prepping. No one does that to guys, do they? Because their actions are perceived as working hard and taking a well-deserved break.
Before I wrap it up, I’d like to conclude that we shouldn’t let these social pressures put our girls down from the amazing debate community. The satisfaction of victory against the people that made fun of you is overwhelmingly awesome. Don’t let them get to you. Show the community that you’re the bigger person. Pursue debate.
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