Women and Contact Sports

The Resolution There is no enforcement body that demands resolutions be obeyed. The compulsion of the resolution is from the supposed superiority of the facts and logic supporting it over alternatives. A case is "compelling" if the conclusion cannot be resisted by counter argument. If the benefits of establishing and promoting contact sports for women outweigh the disadvantages, then no school will have sufficient reason not to establish and promote contact sports for women. Your school does not have a women's football team. It's very likely your school is obeying Title IX and is now equally funding men's and women's athletics. If the resolution is affirmed, then whoever is in charge of the athletics program should drop an existing women'ssport, hire a football coach for a women's team, buy the needed equipment, and promote the new team. There might be some peculiar circumstances -- a school for the blind might be exempted from football -- but the logic should be compelling in every normal case. Your school should be compelled by the logic of the affirmative case to carry out the resolution. The current circumstances are that women's sports are guaranteed equal funding by law and which sports are established and promoted are determined by the schools and the interests of the athletes. Pro has offered no compelling reason to abandon that way of doing business. 1. Benefits to women The resolution states: High schools and colleges in the United States should establish and promote women’s teams in contact sports, including football and wrestling. But in R2, Pro says "If it is not logistically rational to have a football program, then a football program should not be established." If it s not logistically rational to have a football team, then the resolution fails because the resolution claims it is rational to do so. Admittng that it may or may not be rational depending upon circumstances negates the resolution and concedes the debate. So what are the claimed benefits to women? Pro concedes that contact sports are no better than other sports. I claim that contact sports are worse, because contact sports are not life sports, and moves the women's program away from life sports. 2. Sexism Pro's premise is that promoting contact sports for women would reduce sexism. My rebuttal is if we examine sports traditionally thought to be feminine, having male participation has not diminished that perception. There are male cheerleaders, but nonetheless Pro vigorously maintains that cheerleading is a female sport. (I said cheerleading is like a sport. Pro says it is a sport. It's being a sport better supports my case.) Pro responds that what happens in male sports, i.e., sexism is not eliminated by equal access, does not apply to women's sports. Male cheerleaders have no affect on cheerleading being perceived as a female sport, but Pro expects that having female football players would change the way football is perceived. That's sexist. I'm shocked. the psychology is the same, it is attached to the sport, not the participants. Pro's case rests upon football having cheerleaders. If cheerleading is a source of evil permeating society, then the cure is to ban cheerleading, not to try to make football players out of cheerleaders. Cheerleading really is not a problem,. Society should not demand that men and women always be interchangeable. I don't agree that cheerleading is subordinate. Cheerleaders are working with the crowd of spectators, not with the football players. Football players are there to entertain the crowd, and cheerleaders are doing exactly the same thing. I think cheerleaders know they are part of the event, not subordinate to the game. 3. Participation Pro cited statistics that women's wrestling has increased substantially, so therefore it proves there is a sweeping demand for contact sports. If a sport has 20 participants when it's introduced and 100 participants a few years later, that's 500% growth. If tiddly-winks were introduced as a sport, we would expect the same thing to happen. It depends upon starting from zero an a small number of people being accommodated. Consider, “ Curling is a fast-growing sport that incorporates strategy, teamwork, sportsmanship and social interaction into a fun-filled game.” http://www.stateoforegon.info... Fast growth does not indicate broad demand. I challenge Pro to produce evidence of broad demand by women for women's football. If it replaced another sport, overall participation would drop. N1. There Is No Reason To Prefer Contact Sports Pro agrees there is no reason to prefer contact sports. A resolution is affirmed if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. So when Pro grants there is no reason to prefer contact sports, it means there is no advantage in terms of athletics. The only claimed advantages are in the realm of social engineering. Pro argues that if something is not offered than it is "denied" and so contact sports should be offered to remedy the denial. Similarly, most students are denied caber tossing, alligator wrestling, log rolling, knife throwing, sumo, harri jasotzea (stone lifting), and rope skipping . N2. Existing Women's Sports Would Have To Be Dropped Pro says the point would be true if athletic budgets were fixed. I provided evidence that athletics budgets are in fact contracting, with men's football and wrestling being dropped. Pro provided no evidence that budgets are expanding or could be expanded, beyond the theory that funds could be raised. The resolution is that schools should establish and encourage women's contact sports. Schools work within budgets funded by taxes. Sports like Little league are funded by contributions, but those are not within the school system. The debate is "in the United States" and in the United states schools have fixed or, more likely, shrinking, athletics budgets. To understand by point consider a resolution, "Schools in the United States should offer courses in no fewer than twenty-five foreign languages." That would be great if unlimited funding were available, but we know that is not the case, and it is unreasonable to assume unlimited funding is the case. If the resolution were prefaced with, "If funds are available ..." it would be a different story, but that is not what is proposed. Pro argues, "The fact that men's teams are being cut is not an argument that men's teams shouldn't be established and promoted, is it?" It's an argument that new teams of a certain type shouldn't be established or promoted, unless there was a case for cutting the existing teams. N3. Life sports are better. I n the real world there are finite resources. In reality, contact sports compete with other sports for "establishment and promotion." I contend that life sports should be preferred because of the lasting benefits. Pro claims that contact sports have the advantage of being a team sport. Pro's two main examples are football, a team sport, and wrestling, not a team sport. There is a wrestling team, but matches are one-on-one. Life sports include baseball and doubles tennis, both team sports. Pro argues that life sports all lack "physical skill and coordination, and competitiveness." That's not the case. Life sports include tennis, golf, racket ball, and skiing. Summary Pro claims the debate is set in a fantasy world of unlimited resources. In the real world the resolution is negated. Pro further claims that affirming that contact sports should be implemented does not mean that there is are compelling reasons to actually implement them, but rather only to wish it. That's admitting the resolution does not have compelling reasons behind it.