Intersectional Progress or None at All

A place to discuss topics affecting quizbowlers as a community rather than quizbowl as a game.
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Perturbed Secretary Bird
Wakka
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Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:34 am

Intersectional Progress or None at All

Post by Perturbed Secretary Bird »

The events and discourse of the last few days have been incredibly stressing and disheartening, and they have also made me appreciate the mass of women and gender-nonconforming (GNC) people who are working to improve quizbowl and care for one another. With this wave of rage, I hope that we actually have an intersectional focus this time. Quizbowl won't be safe and good for women and GNC people until it is safe for all women, etc, including Black, Latinx, Indigenous, trans, and disabled women, etc of every demographic that is not fairly represented in quizbowl.

Many conversations I've had about this topic go along the lines of "well we go to [x selective college] and there's not many [people of y demographic] here." This is a bullshit excuse. Many of us attend public schools that are more racially and ethnically diverse than quizbowl as a whole is. And even if our schools have horrid diversity, we need to think about what we can do to make quizbowl a place of refuge and social connection for whoever wants to join, regardless of their background. We also need to have more conversations about accessibility in quizbowl for people who are physically disabled and/or neurodivergent. The identity groups I've just described are nowhere near comprehensive, of course.

I realize I am saying a lot here and not doing enough *doing*. I saw this gap in the discussion and wanted to call for any efforts that emerge from all this to take all types of oppression into account.

Here is a primer of anti-oppression stuff: https://simmons.libguides.com/anti-oppression

And here is Audre Lorde's short essay that way more eloquently expresses what I was trying to get at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1pNsLsHsfs

And here's Kimberle Crenshaw giving a keynote on intersectionality cause I guess not all of y'all read her essay the first time I posted it on the forums in response to some general fuckery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DW4HLg ... e=youtu.be

My DM's are open to people who are struggling with any form of oppression within or outside of quizbowl. If you want to talk about some form of oppression that you're participating in or worried that you're participating in, please do DM me UNLESS you're a man worrying specifically about misogyny. I'm tapped out for a while on that one- go read through the recently posted threads and pick the most thoughtful-sounding dude there to message instead.
Athena Kern
They/them/theirs
Washington University in St. Louis, MSW '19-'21
University of Chicago Class of '18, Team VP '15-'17
P. L. Dunbar '14
PACE
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