Personal Experience of A Community Member

I think the most hurtful thing I've experienced as a woman in the debate community is not being treated like a competitor as much as an assistant or someone's partner. I know I've been referred to as my "___'s partner", left off email chains, never asked questions in cross-ex, and been given consistently lower speaks than my male debate partner. On my team, I've been consistently relegated to novice work even after asking to be put on research assignments. It just feels really demoralizing to have your success and presence put second.

I think it's important for us to try to change the culture in the debate community that we have surrounding success. Specifically, I think the idolization of "good debaters" contributes a lot to the lack of accountability in debate. Many men who are good at debate are usually considered good people by extension. I know I've seen teammates who don't even know good debaters make excuses when accusations are made against them. You hear "he's not like that" or "he didn't mean it". I think change can happen if we change how we approach success, meaning we don't put debaters on a pedestal via things like the coaches poll and instead focus on your personal goals (and going outside). I think this happens naturally to an extent as people age out of the activity and realize good debaters aren't built different, they're just normal kids. This is not true for everyone.

- Anonymous