The Psychology Behind Sexism in Debate by Aewulf

“The Psychology Behind Sexism in Debate” dives deep into the psychological phenomena that undergird the gender biases and discrepancies that are prevalent in the competitive high school speech and debate sphere. In this podcast, hosts Aarushi Jain, Suhani Narayan, and Meera Sehgal analyze psychological studies and concepts to understand how unequal treatment of gender minorities in the speech and debate space can be explained with science, and assess what truly makes peers and judges feel the need to participate in the discrimination. They do this all while providing statistics from tournaments and relating their psychological discussions to the real-life experiences of past and current female speech and debate competitors and coaches, illustrating the ways in which conscious and subconscious sexism lead to marginalization in the speech and debate community. All three hosts have been participating in speech and debate competitively for three years and are extremely passionate about the activity. The issue of the disproportionate treatment of women is one that is near and dear to their hearts and one that they have felt the effects of directly, making them strong advocates for finding solutions to this problem and improving the activity as a whole.