Sexual Harassment in Forensics – 6 years later…

In relation to this previous post on a study from 1994 on coaching debate and raising children, I thought I might post some other studies that deserve revisiting.  This post refers to a study done by Pamela Stepp, former Director of Forensics at Cornell University, the results of which were published in an article in the journal Communication Education, in the January 2001 issue. 

Here is the abstract:

Recent court rulings have made incidents of sexual harassment more worrisome for professors, particularly those who coach students in forensics (individual speaking events and intercollegiate debate extra-curricular activities).  Participants were 611 students and coaches from four national forensics organizations who filled out a modified version of the Sexual Experience Questionnaire to assess understanding and experiences of sexual harassment.  Results indicated that sexual harassment is widespread in forensics, that women are harassed more than men, and that women in intercollegiate debate are harassed more than women in individual speaking events.

The study included behavior ranging from the quid pro quo harassment to sexually inappropriate behavior and talk that created a hostile environment.  Here is an excerpt from one of the narratives in a survey:

One of the worst experiences I had in college was at a large national NDT Tournament.  A debater from another school had expressed an interest in me.  When a judge from his school judged me, the judge began to question me before the round about my relationship with the debater.  This happened in front of my partner (a male) and the other team (both male).  The judge asked me if I had sex with him, if I was planning to have sex with him, if I wanted the judge to arrange for us to be alone at the hotel that night. . .I was so embarrassed that he was asking me these questions, and I didn’t know what to do.  (NDT female debater)

Whenever I read things like this, I wonder if incidences such as these are result of ignorance or malice.  I have to think it is often ignorance.  What I mean by this is in many of these situations if you spoke to the person who behaved inappropriately after the incident, they would have no awareness of how they made the other person feel.  And if they did know how it made them feel before they said it, they would never say it.  Obviously, there are those who are malicious and who do say things like this to hurt the other person, but much of the time in our community I think these things happen because the person thinks they’re being funny, and that everyone is enjoying the joke.  And they continue to think that because so many of us remain silent about our objections in order to “keep the peace” or to “fit in”.  Its a difficult place for one to be located.

Although Stepp recognizes that surveys are not the best way to collect information, as those who were harassed may be more likely to respond than those who were not, I think it would be interesting to have some similar studies done as a point of comparison.  In the article, there is a suggestion that would be interesting to explore in this era of “self-disclosure debate,” (for lack of a better term), where teams are choosing to disclose their personal experiences, including past sexual experiences, as narratives in policy debate rounds.  Although this is not what I would call widespread, it has appeared enough to become relatively known within the community.  The suggestion from the article is:

Research should explore the sexualized atmosphere of sexual talking and jokes, which appears to be so common in the forensics community.  Gutek (1985) claims that when women have a male supervisor more co-workers are likely to harass.  This may mean that forensics coaches can have an influence on the climate in their organizations in terms of the types of behavior that is encouraged or forbidden.  Lack of action represents tolerance for sexual harassment.  Fitzgerald and Shullman (1993) claim a dire need for a method to assess organizational climates and environments for these behaviors.

I am a strong believer in organizational culture and the leadership of an organization being responsible for that culture.  So, I agree that on teams, the coach can do much to alleviate the problems of harassment.  In addition, we can be the person to speak up in gatherings where inappropriate sexualized comments are being made.  But, with the new personal disclosure in rounds, it becomes a whole different concern of who is the manager of that environment?  Should the judge be responsible for that?  How do you know when disclosure crosses over into harassment?  As a coach and as an educator, I have responsibilities to my team and my classes, but as a judge, to whom am I responsible?  What about my debaters?  If they feel a disclosure crosses a line, how should they handle that?   I don’t have firm answers to these questions at this point, but I do think they are something that needs to be discussed for the forensics organizational culture, as the 2001 results indicate. 

I think this is worthwhile of research so we have an idea of where we stand as organizations (CEDA, NDT, AFA, NPDA, etc.) in the area of sexual harassment.

Speaking Skills = Success for Women

Yet another reason to support your local speech and debate program!  A recent study of 100 female executives in Southern California (not the most representative sample perhaps, but this could be impetus for a study of former participants in speech and debate) showed that public speaking skills were considered the MOST important factor determining professional success.  The results of the study have a few findings that relate to our activity:

1. Public speaking skills are a “must have” and not a “nice to have” for a professional women today.
2. Public speaking skills are the “breakthrough” skills that create new opportunities for women.
3. Public speaking skills are the “breakthrough” skills that allow women to shatter the glass ceiling.

The opportunities that women are provided in developing these skills in high school and college through speech and debate can not only be touted as beneficial, but may be seen as key to overcoming the inequalities that still exist in the workplace.  A recent US Census Bureau report showed women making only 77 cents for every dollar made by a man. 

Although we constantly discuss the importance of women in our activity, perhaps we would do well to tout the importance of our activity to women! An interesting perspective to consider.  I would like to see if the study would hold up in a broader and more academic application.  Something to consider for future study.

Women in Debate – Some New Perspectives

A few things I have read this week have resonated with me, making me recognize some things about the discussion of women in debate that is constantly being replayed within the intercollegiate policy debate community.  I thought I would take this opportunity to share them.  I’m not sure they will help to solve any problems, but I think a truly effective solution always requires us to first understand the problems/issues.  This is an area where I think our community SEES the problem, but can not UNDERSTAND the problem.  Without understanding, identification of problems will never lend themselves to a solution.

The first thing I found of interest was a study done by Jennifer L. Berdahl from the University of Toronto, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.  The article’s title, “The Sexual Harassment of Uppity Women,” is sure to capture people’s attention, but the findings can be appropriately applied to intercollegiate debate.  The study was actually three studies.  The first looked at female and male college students, finding that “women with relatively masculine personalities (e.g., assertive, dominant, and independent) experienced the most sexual harassment.”  The second evaluated why this was the case, finding that “women with relatively masculine personalities were more likely than others to negatively evaluate potentially harassing scenarios.”  The third and final study, and the one which I think is most important when looking at college debate, “included male and female employees at 5 organizations” and showed that “women in male-dominated organizations who had relatively masculine personalities were sexually harassed the most.”

So, you may be wondering why I’m discussing this study in the context of intercollegiate debate.  A few reasons actually come to mind.  First, I think that most traditional gender analyses would find that what we do in intercollegiate debate is often masculine in tone and execution.  This means that women would often be perceived as demonstrating the masculine traits identified in the study.  In addition, debate is still largely male-dominated (although this is not true at every level or in every context, in a broad sense, it is true).  If we are to accept the findings of the study, this means that there is a high likelihood of women being sexually harassed in debate.  I agree with the author of the study that, “Viewing sexual harassment as the insensitive or nefarious pursuit of sexual expression and gratification has generated much confusion and controversy about why and whether sexual harassment constitutes sex discrimination and has led to policies that focus on policing sexual behavior at work rather than acts that perpetuate sex inequality.”  This calls into question the expectations that all of us have for women in debate.  Do we expect them to behave differently than men in debate?  Do we judge them differently?  I believe that there have been studies that have shown that the answer to these questions is a definitive yes.  Now we need to start asking what we can do about it.

The second item that made me think of the Women in Debate issue, was an online article from Pink Magazine (a publication that is new to me and one of my favorites) about Amparo Moraleda, General Manager, IBM Spain, Portugal, Greece, Israel and Turkey.  She does a good job of summing up one of the reasons the mentoring program is so important to me:

“I believe that each of us – every woman who has achieved certain milestones and has been able to differentiate herself in the business world – has a duty to become a role model for other women and to show it’s possible to be successful [and have] a personal or family life. Women lack role models. Many think it’s impossible because they don’t see a lot of women doing it. And I want to share that success is about determination, resiliency and passion…”

 I strongly believe that women role models are one of the most important ways we can improve participation levels and success levels of women in debate.  This past year, a two-woman team from Emory won the prestigious NDT.  Which is great.  But the question becomes, will those women stick around debate in the future or will they go on to “bigger and better things”?  Because if exceptional women have exceptional success and then move on, it is more difficult to establish a role model situation.  There are a lot of men who stick around the activity to coach and for graduate assistantships, but the number of women who do that is even lower than the number of women who find success while competing.  Again, I’m sure there are numerous reasons this is true, but I think its an important issue to understand in order to improve participation levels among women.

Well, I haven’t solved any of the world’s or debate’s problems in this post, but maybe these references will spark some ideas in me or someone else and we can start moving towards better understanding for better solutions.