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| 女 The G-Spot November 2002 | Thinking About Methodology: Liberal v. Radical Feminism Serena Turley, G-Spot Submissions Editor |
This year's college
debate topic is Resolved: That
the USFG should ratify or accede to and implement ore or more of the
following treaties:
When the debate community was initially discussing this year's topic, The Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was originally on the list for consideration. However, internal debates during the topic committee meeting resulted in CEDAW being replaced by the SORT treaty. After the final vote, I was a little bit outraged and dismayed that our supposedly "liberal" community had voted to eliminate what I consider to be one of the most important pieces of international legislation since the creation of the United Nations. I posted my anger on E-debate and was told that I should have voiced my concerns before the vote took place. While this response ignored the fact that I had, indeed, posted to E-debate to voice my opinion about CEDAW, it also overlooked a larger question about participation and enfranchisement in the decision-making process. So after a lot of soul-searching, I ultimately decided that I was going to talk about CEDAW this year, regardless of whether or not it was a legitimate topic for conversation within the debate community. Obviously, this has raised quite a ruckus, because many members of the debate community, ranging from students, coaches, and judges, don't appreciate the fact that my debate partner and I are giving the middle finger to the rules of the debate establishment. But, I really don't give a shit what other people think, so long as I have the support of my debate partner and coaches. You're probably thinking, "But I'm not a debater. Why should I care?" Well, this whole situation has gotten me to thinking about methodology and the ways in which we go about seeking to effect social change. It's been a little frustrating to hear my peers tell me, "Gee. I agree with the spirit of your project, but I don't like the way you're going about this. You shouldn't single people out as bigots and you should try to play by the rules." Unfortunately, these comments echo the all-too-familiar dialogue that has been occurring between the different branches of the feminist movement since the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. While it would be overly-simplistic to say that there are only two branches of feminism, I think it's fair enough to say that as far as political strategies are concerned, most feminists are either liberal or radical. Either you believe that change is possible within the current system (and you're a liberal) and you seek reforms in existing laws to achieve gender equity, or you believe that the master's tools will never break down the master's house and that change will have to come from outside the system (and you're a radical). While there are definitely plenty of feminists out there who think that you need a little bit of both, I am not one of those feminists. The system doesn't work for me and I don't intend to work for the system. Therefore, I am a radical feminist.
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Although she wasn't the first example of a radical feminist, Alice Paul used more militant protest methods than her liberal counterparts. Paul went on a hunger strike to help womyn gain the right to vote and was thrown in jail for her radical beliefs.
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But let me get back to
the question of this year's debate topic. At the outset of my
self-proclaimed protest movement, some of the more elite members of the
debate community suggested that I should petition to have the topic
changed for one of the year's biggest tournaments as a compromise.
Not satisfied, I told the person who suggested this to me that I wasn't
seeking the approval of those in power and that my project was a means of
liberating myself from the lock on knowledge-production that certain
members of the debate community have claimed for themselves. This
so-called compromise was being offered from the top-down and was really
just a means of silencing my dissent. Well, that's bullshit!
Debate is supposed to be about exposing multiple perspectives on any given
issue and it seems to me that people only want to look at the perspectives
that don't force them to take a critical look inward and certainly not
ones that demand a change in people's behavior.
Another part of the problem is that many people don't perceive that there is latent sexism/racism that goes on in debate. They've read a few articles about feminist/critical race theory and a couple of years ago they debated about amending Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so basically, sexism/racism are a moot point. We don't need to continue asking questions about social inequality. And we certainly shouldn't look at how issues of gender effect discussions of International Relations (IR). Goddess forbid that we bring issues of gender in from the margins and make them the focal-point of our discussions with a silly, old treaty like the CEDAW! I don't really believe that there's sexism/racism in debate, do I? |
| As a matter of fact, I
do. Ten years' worth of statistical data supports my argument that
debate is structured to reflect white, heterosexual male norms and that
there is a huge gender/racial gap within debate. According to
research by Pam Stepp and Beth Gardner of Cornell University, "A
serious problem that has plagued the debate community is retention of
women and minorities." Their study tracked the participation
rates of womyn and minorities at several tournaments and revealed that in
the novice division, 43% of the competitors were womyn and
minorities; in the varsity division, that number plunged to less than
20%. This is in stark contrast to a report in the Chronicle of
Higher Education that found that the 1999/2000 college student
population was made up of 55.8% womyn and 26.2% minorities. How,
then, do we explain why people are leaving the activity? Stepp and
Gardner's survey revealed that participation rates tended to reflect
judging bias that privileged certain types of debaters over others, based
upon the style and type of arguments that the debaters chose to advance in
debates. Well, who makes up the judging pool and who decides which
arguments are legitimate? Since white, hetersexual males make up a
majority of participants in the debate community, it's not a stretch to
figure out that white, heterosexual male norms are reflected in the types
of arguments people go for and the styles of argumentation that people use
to advance those arguments.
So why is our project so dangerous? Possibly because RJ (my debate partner) and I are calling for a radical change in the way that we decide what's debatable and whose voices get privileged in our debates. Since the majority of IR literature is written to reflect while, heterosexual male norms and we make our decisions about what's debatable based upon a review of the field-literature, it's not surprising that our debates tend to normalize the experiences of white, heterosexual males. RJ and I are calling for a more open form of decision-making that would allow EVERYONE to participate in the topic-selection process. In other words, we're calling for a revolution within debate. We want equal representation of womyn and minorities at ALL levels of the community and we're tired of taking the long-way to get there. (Not that I'm suggesting that there's ever a short-cut to ending gender/race-based discrimination.)
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| At the very outset of
this project, a very good friend of mine suggested (as did most of my
friends) that I would be better off talking about one of the treaties on
the approved list because feminists and queer activists have plenty to say
about things like arms control and environmental degradation. The
fact that traditional IR appears to be gender-blind is a reason to use
gender as a filter for discussion about things like the CTBT or the Kyoto
Protocol. My friend claimed that I should use my voice to break the
silence surrounding feminist/queer perspectives on these issues.
While I don't disagree with him about this point, I think that this is all
a prior question to who gets to set the agenda for the debate community
and what's on the menu for discussion. Womyn and sexual minorities
can always raise their voices on the margins of IR, but that doesn't do
anything to bring them into the center of the field. While it has
it's problems, CEDAW is the only treaty EVER WRITTEN that focuses SOLELY
on issues of gender inequality. What does is say about us as
debaters and as academics when we selectively choose to engage in issues
of gender oppression, so long as we keep it at the margins and refuse to
bring it into the center of our discussion?
I, for one, am not satisfied to live at the margins of society. And in the proud tradition of radical feminists like Alice Paul and Assata Shakur, I have only one thing to say to those who control the systems of power that shape our lives: "FUCK YOU!"
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Dubbed the Mother of the Black Liberation Army by the US government and media, Assata Shakur argued that a revolution was necessary to end racial oppression in the United States. Assata believed that change was not possible within the system and that any movement for Black liberation that relied upon those within the systems of power would inevitably be co-opted in order to quell the dissent. |
| I recently
attended a debate tournament at Harvard University, where I had the
opportunity of debating in front of one of the people who was on this
year's topic selection committee, ML Sandoz of Vanderbilt
University. Ms. Sandoz told me that she felt our project raised
valid questions, but that she was kind of offended by our criticisms
because she felt they overlooked the progress that HAS been made in debate
to foster inclusion. She's right. We haven't been talking a
lot about the past achievements of activist debaters and we don't have
many positive things to say about the way things are now. And I have
to offer my apologies for giving the impression that I'm not grateful for
the efforts of people like ML who have dedicated their careers to building
a more inclusive movement. But our project should not be interpreted
as a personal attack on anyone in particular within the debate
community. We're not trying to single-out one person or another as
the ring-leader of oppression. We're talking about systematic forms
of exclusion and disenfranchisement that are driving people from this
activity.
And so I return to my original question and the title of this article. What, might I ask, is the best method of affecting social change? Should we be working towards an amendment of the Cross-Examination Debate Association's (CEDA) constitution to reform the topic-selection process? Can the master's tools be used to break down the master's house? And how does this issue spill over to larger questions of systematic oppression, especially in a time of impending war and Conservative backlash against the Left? I don't know that I have an answer to this question yet. I'm still learning about how to be a good activist and trying to bring my theories into praxis. All I know is that every time I read the autobiography of Assata Shakur and she says that, "we must gain our liberation by any means necessary," I become more and more convinced that change is impossible within the current system. Reforming the CEDA bylaws isn't going to change who participates in debate. And voting for Democratic representatives in Congress isn't going to change the fact that a two-party representative system can only reproduce the same kind of candidate, year after year. It's time for something a little bit more radical than the pulling of a lever in a voting booth. I, for one, am gearing up for a radical revolution because it's like one of my old debate coaches used to tell me: "When you're in the crack house, the answer to everything seems to be to take more crack. Well, it's time to move out of the crack house and get off the junk." IT'S TIME FOR A FUCKING REVOLUTION! In my opinion, the question of methodology can best be answered by examining a person's motives and what kind of goals she is trying to achieve. I don't give a shit about winning or loosing debate rounds. And I don't give a rat's ass about the people in Congress. My personal protest isn't intended to change anyone's mind. I'm speaking up about these issues because I can. Like the members of AIM who took over Alcatraz in the 1970's, I am performing my politics by refusing to wait for those in power to do things for me. And like Dr. Taiaiake Alfred has told me: "If your goal is to make change to the system and to build coalitions to take powers legally, then you have to go the route of patient relationship building and persuasive politics . . . Unless you want to break with the organization and set up something else in its place. For that kind of a grand revolution, you need lots of people who have nothing to lose and who are convinced of it, and then on top of that you need inspiring and active leadership. Tall order, heh? That explains why revolution is so rare." After spending eight years in competitive debate, I've got nothing left to lose, and I suspect that there are others out there like me. Hopefully, you have read this article and thought about your position in society and what you're willing to give up to actualize true, meaningful change. I'm not saying that you're either with us or against us. All I'm saying is that we've pandered to the people in power for long enough and have gotten very little in return for our patience. It's time to shit or get off the pot. IT'S TIME FOR A FUCKING REVOLUTION! |
