RE: [quizbowl] Re: Best Female Players--Who Cares?

Blessman, Phil <*Phil.Blessman_at_pblessman.yahoo.invalid*> · Fri, 9 May 2003 11:15:12 -0500

I agree with Nathan to a point, because it does seem like a backhanded
compliment ("So-and-so is a good female player" implying that she's not
that great of an overall player compared to the best male players). At
the same time, I do think it's important that the entire quiz bowl world
look at ways of being more inclusive. Encouraging women to participate
in this activity is one way of doing this. I've coached high school in
Illinois and Wisconsin, and my experience has been that over 80% of all
players are male... isn't something wrong with that? I don't know what
the exact distribution is at the college level, but my impression has
been that not too many women play in college, either.

In terms of solutions to this problem, I will venture into uncharted
territory to give one tiny bit of input about what might make women on
average less interested in our favorite activity: Rampant overly
aggressive and juvenile intellectual chest thumping, as exemplified by
the recent "Best Player" flame war on this list. I'm not claiming
everybody is guilty of this, only that certain individuals are guilty of
this at times, giving quiz bowl a bad name (and even though some women
might participate in this as well, I think the average intelligent
female quiz bowl prospect will be turned off by some of the attitudes
displayed by the worst offenders).

Thanks for listening, and please don't thump me into the ground.

Phil Blessman
Conserve School Quiz Bowl

-----Original Message-----
From: thefool75 [mailto:no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2003 8:39 AM
To: quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com
Subject: [quizbowl] Re: Best Female Players--Who Cares?

I don't understand the relevance of this thread...
Why don't we just ask who's the best Greek-Hungarian player, or the 
best Indian player or the best player who wears glasses--until 
someone demonstrates that their is an innate relationship between 
one's gender and one's QB competency--I tend to think of this as 
rather demeaning to women (because apparently they need to be singled 
out because you know, women can't be as good as men....)  Why not 
just say that so and so is a good player--why qualify it--aren't you 
really saying, "she's good for a girl."

my 3 cents, nathan
Flame away.

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