The Oxford Women’s Open, a debating competition for women only, is set to be held this weekend for the third year running.
The conveners of the Open feel that ‘the top levels of debating simply do not bear out the kind of gender parity that IONA should be seeing after decades of female involvement’.
Ania Dulnik, President of Oxford Women in Politics, explained that they give money to the Oxford Women’s Open because “it runs consistent with our values in that it empowers young women to challenge themselves in a particularly demanding field.”
However the event is not without controversy, with some male members of the university labeling it “divisive.”
Some male students expressed the opinion that “gender specific events exacerbate a divide more than they close the gap” and that “integration, not exclusion, ought to be the priority.”
One student stated, “The unavoidable suspicion is that one only avoids competition when one can’t compete.”
Alex Body, a third year classicist, disagreed. He said that “if women are under-represented or under-achieve in debating, positive measures should be taken to help them,” and added, “if an event like this will have a positive effect on female participation in debating, then it has my vote!”
Susie Deedigan, a second year historian, said that she thought that the competition “could have the potential to seem divisive to some people in the same way as, for example, female-only careers events; however because there is a smaller representation of women in debating, it is important to hold women’s only events.”
The competition also has strong support from Ben Woolgar, a third year PPEist from Balliol, who was recently crowned ‘Best Speaker’ at the World University Debating Championships in Manila. He stated that the Women’s Open “is certainly a brilliant idea.”
Woolgar expressed that the problem of female representation ‘is less bad now than it was three years ago when I started debating at the university” thanks, in part, to the Women’s Open. He also pointed to Australia as a leading example of integrated debating, having had affirmative action requirements and Women’s Officers in all its major debating societies “for generations.” They consequently produce “a much larger number of successful female debaters.”
