MILLIE


I’m not saying this is right; I’m just saying it is: You play by the rules; you get what you want. The reverse of that: In order to get what you want, you pretty much have to play by the rules. Especially if you’re a woman.

Reality isn’t always fair. Reality can sometimes really suck.

Which is why it’s so important to do everything you can to boost your advantage.

Enter high school debate. I’ve been competing for four years now, which means I’ve had plenty of time to get good. Really good. It’s not bragging to say you’re looking at the top seed in Alabama, the senior girl everyone expects to break records by winning the state tournament yet again, just like every other year I’ve competed. It’s just a fact.

But let me backtrack, for those of you unfamiliar with the debate world.

Here’s how it works. In the lead-up to a debate competition, we learn what the topic is. That’s the resolution. Like, “Resolved: No one should ever eat pie again in their life because it would be healthier for the entire country.” No matter that I love pie, particularly of the pizza variety, and am at least theoretically against the concept of limiting what you love—who gets enough of what they love in a lifetime? If it comes at you, you should grab a slice! You have to be able to argue both sides. That’s the whole point.

I spend weeks preparing, writing affirmative and negative arguments, like, for the pie example, that poor nutrition is rampant, and as a nation, getting rid of pie would lead to healthier eating across the board, or, on the converse, treating yourself leads to joy, which is inherently healthy and a value we believe in as Americans—it’s “American as apple pie.” And what about how pie sales stimulate the economy? I’m just riffing, but you get it. I work on my arguments until I could convince just about anyone of something they never would have believed they’d agree with in the first place. I practice having the toughest questions thrown at me, and answering them in a way that not only defeats the asker but also makes them want to put their tail between their legs and slink away like a dog that’s just gotten yelled at.

But—and this is important—I never yell. I practice modulating my voice, because if you’re a girl and you get “emotional,” or “shrill,” or you “uptalk,” you’re dead in the water. You have to be smooth and steady, always calm, always “ladylike.” Better wear that pantyhose, because if you don’t, some good-old-boy judge or middle-aged lady who wore pantyhose when she was a teenage debater and thinks because she did, you have to, too, is going to say something, and you’re going to have to stand there and take it, thanking them for their opinion. They might even take points off for it.

Debaters talk about the burden of proof, which belongs to the affirmative, but as a girl debater, the burden of “proof” belongs to you: Does your skirt cover your knees? Are you wearing a skirt? Are you attractive, but not “too” attractive? When a boy comes at you hard, can you come back soft and still make your point? (Because coming back just as hard makes you “unappealing” or “rude” or “factually correct but abrasive.”)2 Can you deal with the jokes that aren’t funny and the way that you’re expected to laugh anyway to show you have a sense of humor? Can you avoid flinching, or drawing back, when the director who runs the tournament hugs you when he gives you your first-place trophy and holds on to you a little bit too long? Can you get up an hour earlier than every guy debater so you have time to do your hair and pull off your “no-makeup” look while they show up looking like they just rolled out of bed?

Can you make sure you never, ever cry, even when someone says something horrible to you, either right in front of you or behind your back? Even when you lose, because sometimes, you will lose.

There aren’t that many of us on the circuit, probably one girl to every three dudes, and even fewer who make it to final rounds, not that we’re not deserving. There were so many who might have been good. I have friends I made on the circuit who quit after feeling bullied or harassed or like the cards were just too stacked against them, even though they did everything right. I know girls who never started debating at all, just because they knew what would happen.

As one of the ones who stuck around, you can bet your butt I want to win.

And I do, most of the time.

I’ve even practiced getting hugged so I don’t make a face, which wouldn’t come off as “grateful” or “appreciative” or “awardworthy.” My best friend, Carlos—he’s a debater, too—we must have hugged fifty times in a row to get it right.

Even when I think I’ve gotten it down, I repeat, repeat, repeat.

Topics change every couple of months, so once you’ve gotten really good at arguing one thing, you’re on to the next. Last year I won state on Resolved: The United States government ought to provide for the medical care of its citizens. Easy-peasy, you’re thinking? Who doesn’t want health care? But I argued the negative, which means America shouldn’t provide medical care for its citizens. (It was still easy-peasy. I can argue just about anything, which isn’t to say I agree with it—that’s beside the point.)

I do Lincoln-Douglas debate, which is named after Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas and their famous series of debates about slavery and the future of America during the 1858 Illinois state election campaign. There are also policy and public forum debaters: We’re usually at the same tournaments, but we exist in different worlds. Policy debaters, who operate in teams of two, get one resolution to work on all year, and they spend the entire debate reading “proof” of their point as fast as they can.3 Public forum debaters also work in teams of two, and their topics change monthly, but they go less into theory and evidence than policy or L-D. Lincoln-Douglas debaters roll solo. Our topics change every two months, and, like Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, we present arguments based on values—like morality or justice or liberty or equality.4 L-D debaters want to change minds, not just throw a bunch of facts at them.5

This tournament’s resolution about what we “ought to”6 do about guns was a little iffy, though, considering how many active shooter drills I’d already been through by the age of seventeen. Don’t get me wrong, it was definitely a topic people were talking about. And the point of debate is to come up with the best arguments for even the most seemingly impossible statement, regardless of your personal opinion. Most complicated topics do have another side to them that’s worth listening to, even if it never changes your mind. But something felt wrong about this lofty discussion of gun ownership when kids were regularly being murdered with guns they didn’t have any say in the legalization of and the NRA kept acting like it wasn’t their problem.

Every time there’s a shooting, more people buy guns. Did you know that?

The whole thing really pissed me off. So did the resolution’s inherent construct of a country full of cops and military personnel who would still get to own guns when regular people didn’t. That was the great argument on the negative side, in my opinion. If you took guns away from private citizens, you should take them away from everyone; otherwise you’re slippery sloping to a complete and total police state. There was a part of me that wanted to yell “Abolish the cops and we’ll all be safer!” when I was assigned the negative side in a debate round, and then start throwing out stats about police brutality.

For a second, I let myself really imagine it—changing the rules of the game, shocking everyone, and coming out differently on the other side.

But this was debate. This was Alabama. This was America, for better and worse. And I wanted to win. I hadn’t put up with everything for this long to start losing based on some ridiculous desire to say what I really thought. I’d take home that state trophy knowing I was not only the only girl debater but the only high school student in the history of Alabama to have won every single state championship I’d competed in: freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year. After state came Nationals, which you were invited to if you broke7 at enough Nationals-qualifying tournaments—something I’d always done, and planned to do this year, too. And there were even bigger things on the line. Scholarships. You could have your entire college career paid for, no debt, free and clear. That would be everything to me and my mom.

It’s like I said. To get what you want, you play by the rules.


Text copyright © 2022 Jen Doll