Tournament: jvnovice | Round: 1 | Opponent: eaefjn | Judge:
I am all but dead in this space when you silence me. I can't come here as a friend even though I very much want to. 

What I would like to do is to scream: and in that scream I would have the screams of the raped, and the sobs of the battered; and even worse, in the center of that scream I would have the deafening sound of women's silence, that silence into which we are born because we are women and in which most of us die. 

Men exert power over women in debate.  

What can I do as a woman who has experienced exclusion in this community? All I can do is reflect upon my experiences. For me it comes down to fight or flight, 

I’ve done both, but I’m done being the hesitant girl in the corner. I like debate but debate doesn’t like me. I am trapped within my own body and then told what to do with it. 

Judges tell me I’m too aggressive and need to calm down then I’m told I’m too feminine and need to speak up. I am done letting you try and put me into boxes because you are scared of me. 

The community has forbidden me to become the debater I want to be. I am done saying I’m sorry, this is my survival strategy, but I am done just trying to survive, I want to live. I want debate to be a home, but I don’t feel safe here. 

I will stand trial when challenged or voted down it is as damaged goods in the community, being analyzed and look upon as an object waiting to receive a scarlet letter. 

Being a woman in debate means being robbed of my choice by men who love to hate me. 

I do not make choices in freedom. Instead, I conform to the judge in the back to become an object of male domination. 

Men too make choices. When will they choose not to despise me? 

Women are indefinitely detained within their own bodies- this is the place where war has been waged upon- using women as sexual objects. 

We find ourselves targeted by an institution far too comfortable with its abuse of power. This violence is not hidden or perpetrated away from the scope of politics; the public sphere actively assumes a neutral political subject, making the female body invisible. 

New strategies are crucial in preventing complacency within the system that prioritizes masculine politics that leave women in violent spaces.

This is the only way we can actively engage in policy making to remove masculine hierarchies. The only way we can solve for this is to look at the atrocities happening to women in our own community. By challenging the institution we participate in we can actively change and influence real policy. 

Silence is Complicit