Gender dynamics in high school policy debate: propagating gender hierarchies in advocating ‘better’ futures

Abstract

High school policy debate is an academically rigourous and highly competitive US activity—elite debaters often go on to top universities and pursue successful careers. Access to the skills that debate teaches is invaluable for high schoolers, but these benefits are not equally accessible to all. As a historically male-dominated activity, the number of male debaters remains disproportionately high and the activity continues to be highly influenced by gender hierarchies. Through semi-structured interviews, this paper addresses the question: what makes high school policy debate a unique educational space for producing gender dynamics, and what are the impacts of those dynamics on debaters that identify as women? Our findings show that debate is a complex and contradictory space. While women in debate are disadvantaged by gender imbalance, implicit activity norms, and instances of objectification and sexual violence, the activity also arms students with tools to disrupt these gender hierarchies.