That feminism should celebrate unisex sports leagues

Judge: Bifurcations
Win awarded to: Anthony Tai
Reasoning:
This debate really suffered from a lack of analysis even when only considering the rounds where a case was presented. Each side had the beginnings of good arguments but a lack of ability in extensive justification and then being able to prove the impact of your argument. This means that as judges we are left to weigh the harms v benefits ourselves and it is preferable for debaters to prove the conclusion of your own case because we can credit you with winning that argument much easier.
I'll go through the debate as it happened and explain what i felt happened in the debate which justifies the decision I gave.
So the opening arguments were a little sparse but from Pro i get this:
-That the goal of feminism is equality between men and women and unisex sports fits that goal because men and women are competing in the league equally.
This is a good start but I'm really missing an explanation of what equality on sport is. Is it 50/50 gender split on teams or is it counting the successes of individual athletes. What you present is the idea that simply having the ability to play in the same league means equality has been achieved.
Con provides this:
-celebrating would mean celebrating rights denied
-women are still discriminated against in sports
Both of these claims are presented without substantiation at this point. The first argument given a lack of analysis to explain it seems unrealistic. Celebrating the end of slavery didn't mean we were celebrating the fact that slavery had previously existed but rather that we had moved on and now people had more freedom. The second point you explain in the next round so I will deal with that then.

At this point both teams present ideas that could be interesting and clever but with a lack of explanation or analysis as to why they are true they are really just assertions. So no one has yet provided an argument that they can win with.

In the second round (and third) the analysis improves greatly. From Pro I understand this:
-Feminists should celebrate women succeeding especially in uni sex sports because this challenges the patriarchy
-Women can succeed in uni sex sports. The example of Ronda Rousey.
I think this does a much better job of explaining why it is beneficial of feminists to celebrate uni sex sports and also why as a feminist you would want to celebrate it. However I am struggling to see the full impact and therefore the full benefit of this idea. How much of a challenge to the patriarchy is this? What will that mean for further equality? I am left believing that it will possibly be a good thing and something that challenges the patriarchy seems like a sensible thing for feminists to celebrate. Your next argument shows the issue with presenting an example without first having fully analysed your point. Why will enough women do well in same sex sports that we can celebrate the success of the gender rather than just the success of a few individuals? Presenting an example without first explaining that in unisex sports men and women would get the same training and funding and that means that with equal opportunities women will do well, means that your example can be side stepped as happens in this case.
From Con I understand this:
-women might not always be successful
-people have biases towards genders
-scouts have these biases which makes it harder for women to be selected if a scout perceives them to be less capable
This is a decent presentation of how biases that exist will be used to limit the success of women in unisex sports. This undermines Pros idea that unisex sports challenge the patriarchy enough to get rid of all biases within sport.
I am left with then some women will succeed and some won't. Con does a slightly better job of explain why it would be the general situation that women wont succeed due to biases which suggests that even if they are capable of doing so they might not get the opportunity. But again this is a judgment call on my part because neither side provides this analysis. So just narrowly con is winning after round 2/3.

The next round is the last one I took into consideration because there was essentially no discussion of the debate after this point. So for the last round I understand this from Pro:
-Con's argument opposes what feminism stands for and is therefore wrong
-"we can't embrace a bias while arguing for fairness and equality"
This speech was unfortunate because you end up conceding con's case. Your first point suggests that there was a misunderstanding of con's argument. Con says that biases exist at the moment and people will use those to make it harder for women to succeed. By saying the argument is against feminism doesn't tell me why either bias won't exist or won't hamper women succeeding in sport. Or why celebrating unisex sports will do enough damage to the patriarchy to overcome biases. Your second argument says that if bias exists in sport then feminism cannot support that sport which means you concede con's case because you have disproven the existence of bias.
From con I understand this:
-It is hard to detect individual bias in scouts and the bias is instinctual
On some level this might be true but surely if a scout promotes ten men for every one woman that might be an indication of bias. Yes bias can be instinctual (latent) but to make this argument you need to prove why this will continue to happen, why it should go unchallenged and what the harm of that is in much greater detail. It does go unchallenged though as both parties stop engaging with the debate.

At the end of that I believe that biases exist and this makes it harder for women to succeed in sport because of this and when it goes unchallenged and is then conceded I have to give the win to con.


Feedback:
Like I said both participants suffered from a lack of understanding of how to build a strong and influential case so my feedback is the same for both.

The first thing to consider is what makes an argument persuasive.
Proving that an argument is true seems silly but this is where many debates can be won and lost.
Give definitions and explain why in the majority of circumstances your conception of the idea is true.
For example it would be useful to explain on proposition why the goal of feminism is equality between men and women. This seems ridiculous but it can be challenged by con presenting a different definition such as feminism is about the advancement of women irrespective of our position in relation to men. This becomes important in this debate because to understand why feminism should or should not celebrate unisex sports I have to be convinced what the goals of feminism are.

Once an argument has been proven to be true you have to prove why it is relevant and important to the debate.
You can give the most amazing analysis about why women only leagues are good but if you don't explain what that has to do with the debate it comes less persuasive because I don't understand why that argument furthers your win in this debate. Again this seems silly but if you don't explain the relevance you leave it up to others to assume the relevance of the argument and you cannot guarantee that people will be able to do that. It is a simple thing to do that improves your chances of being understood and therefore more persuasive.

Now the argument has been made it must be shown that there is a harm or benefit produced. If I understand that this argument will lead to a benefit for Pro then it is persuading me that Pro should win. If it is proven that it leads to a harm by Con then that is persuading me that con should win. For example if Pro proves that unisex sports damage the patriarchy because it presents the idea that gender is independent of success and it is then proven that this is important because feminism works to limit the effects of the patriarchy therefore something that achieves that goal should be celebrated, pro can then go on to explain in detail what the benefits on unisex sport undermining the patriarchy is. For example, boys are less likely to leave the girls till last when picking teams in gym class because they see that girls can work with them in a team efficiently. This means that girls get more respect in gym and are more likely to pursue that as a career etc. The more benefits/ harms you can prove lead directly from your argument the more likely you are to persuade me that the you won the debate. Again these benefits/ and harms should be proven to be true and important if they are to be the most persuasive. This makes it more difficult for the other side to rebut your arguments and disprove your benefits/harms.

Next: be comparative. This means that you take your argument that has been proven true and relevant and you compare it to the alternative presented. This was seriously lacking in this debate and is a really useful skill to instantly improve the persuasiveness of an argument. For example Pro may analyses that women can succeed in sport and Con may analyse that women can fail in sports. Presumably the real situation is that some women will succeed and some will fail. By comparing your arguments to your opponents you explain why your argument gives the most realistic out comes for the majority of circumstances. For example, Pro may prove that equal training leads to equal opportunities which means women and men are likely to succeed in equal amounts. Con can be comparative and say equal opportunities do not just come form trying but rather being rewarded for that success by people like scouts. These people have inherent biases that exist because there is still a stigma that men will always be better at sport than women. This means that even if a female athlete could succeed she is less likely to be given the opportunity to do so therefore less women will succeed because of a lack of opportunity. By comparing two arguments and proving that in general your case is likely to be the realistic outcome your case is more persuasive.

Finally you can give an example to nicely round off your argument. It is important to put the example at the end because it has the most chance to be persuasive there. If you build a case that is true, important, believable and comparative then your example solidifies your argument. If the examples used first and the argument built up around the example it is easier to dismiss the whole case. This is because there are many examples and counter examples to each debate and an example can be easily side stepped as an anomaly or not representative of the general circumstances. If people believe your analysis then an example gives you the credibility of knowing what you are talking about which adds to the persuasiveness but only once people believe what you are saying to be true. Be careful with examples as well. Like I said they are fairly easy to dismiss and a debate full of counter examples is really no fun at all. To avoid these problems you must explain why your example represents the conceptualisation of the idea you want to prove. Essentially, explain why your example is relevant to your argument.

This should be a good start to providing a clear and persuasive argument for you winning the debate.

You can then build up your post in a clear format for example:

Short introduction to speech.

1. Title of first argument
then provide the analysis, comparatives and examples to win the argument.

2. Title of second argument
again provide analysis, comparatives and examples to win the argument.

Summaries what you have proven and why that means you should win.

You are typing this out not speaking it so you have the opportunity to read over your work and make sure it is as good and as clear as you want it to be.

---

2 users rated this judgement as constructive

Judge: JD Baring
Win awarded to: Anthony Tai
Reasoning:

---

Judge: condeelmaster
Win awarded to: Anthony Tai
Reasoning:
Con forfeited twice, but Pro seemed to concede on round five, so this won't be taken into account.

Both debaters gave just a few arguments to support their positions. Also those arguments weren't so justified or refuted. That leaves a great part of the work to the judges :(

On one hand, Pro contended that since feminisms seeks for gender equality and unisex leagues would increase the equality, feminism should celebrate this.
Con objected that this leagues wouldn't increase equality because society is biased towards men, so the discrimination would still exist.
Pro responded that as feminists are for gender equality, that bias wouldn't exist. But Con easily refuted this, showing that not everybody is or will be feminist.

On the other hand, Con contended that unisex leagues shouldn't be celebrated because it's a simple privilege women should have had. This argument could have been dismissed effortlessly, because every achievement towards gender equality has been celebrated by feminists, so this shouldn't be different. However Pro didn't mentioned that, and left this argument without rebuttal.

The debate also went into the discussion if men and women are equal, which wasn't related to the debate.

At the end of the day, Pro gave one argument that was refuted and Con gave one argument that wasn't refuted. Then, my vote should be for Con.

Feedback:
Both debaters have to enlarge their arguments. When making a case for or against something, you have to give several reasons. Giving just one is taking the risk of getting that reason refuted and loosing the debate.
Also more organization would be ideal. Headlines, paragraphs and that sort of things make the speech easier to read and understand.

---

1 user rated this judgement as constructive

Judge: Alok Kumar
Win awarded to: Anthony Tai
Reasoning:
Very well said anthony.Females have equal rights in our society, and this is a fact which cant be denied. But,alas, not everyone is a believer of this fact. Untill and unless hardened rules are made in order to create a platform for unisex sports.

---