Urban Dictionary defines it as, “a term for a club that only allows men into their group, often used as a way to get away from their wives/girlfriends and hang out with other like-minded individuals.” Sometimes prefaced with the word “old,” it has been mentioned by many hot-shot female CEO’s and Senators who, after penetrating the club, revealed it to the public. I’m talking about The Boys’ Club, and in the fall of my freshman year, I discovered where it begins.

When I think Old Boy’s Club, I think plaid sports jackets, cigars, golf, and some of my friends’ middle-aged fathers. I don’t think two hundred geeky fifteen- through eighteen-year-olds in too-big suits caucusing about Universal Healthcare. In other words, the Debate Team.

After my experiences in debate, I’ve come to realize that these kids are going to be our generation’s Old Boys' Club. It’s going to be a different club from the ones our mothers and grandmothers knew. It will be more racially diverse, and access, I believe, will be more based on merit, rather than old wealth and family connections. However, the gender and power dynamics will probably remain the same.

There’s Model UN, Mock Trial, Mock Congress, and the like, but nothing compares to the men of the Northeast Debate Teams. Competitive, arrogant, witty, cut-throat, snobbish, and ridiculously geeky, they rule the underworld of argument. I first attended debate along with nearly my entire grade when I went to the “interest meeting” in September of 9^th grade. Many of my friends, girls and boys, were there, but when we began a practice debate, I found that I was one of the few girls participating. As the debate season wore on, I watched as more and more of my girl friends dropped out. They all had different excuses: that it was too much work or that they just weren’t that interested in the topics. I didn’t fully realize the gender gap until attending my first debate tournament. This is in part because my debate team has more girls than many any others I have come into contact with. At my first debate tournament, however, I debated eight times, debating a girl only once.

What is it about debate that just turns girls away? Debate is filled with stress, competition, intense confrontation, and once in a while failure.  These are things I think high school girls are not particularly comfortable dealing with.

The type of debate I do is one on one: you, your opponent and a judge. It lasts forty minutes and you give one pre-written speech, and two speeches on the spot. It requires you to think on your feet, remain calm, and deal with intimidation. Why is it boys are more comfortable with this? Is it the same reason that makes them call out in class, and be less afraid to ask questions? Debate uses all the skills girls my age are not used to having. What I didn’t realize before I did debate, was how important many of these skills are.  There is one section of the debate called Cross-X, where your opponent questions you for three minutes straight. Sometimes my opponents cut me off in the middle of my answers. Sometimes, they are cold and calculating and try to get me to admit I’m wrong. Mostly, they try to intimidate, scare, and freak me out. After surviving hundreds of Cross-Examinations, I have learned to be cool, collected, and never thrown off. This has become a great advantage in not just debate, but the rest of my life! When I appeared on the National News this past spring to discuss an essay I had in the book She’s Out There!, I didn’t feel nervous at all. I knew any question they threw at me I would be able to handle, because nothing is as scary as a competitive teenage boy with everything riding on his one question. I now know I will be able to survive any college or job interview I ever have, because I have crafted so many answers to so many questions I wasn’t anticipating. This is a skill more girls need to learn, as they move forward as leaders in the political and business arenas.

As much as I want more girls to join Debate Teams, and as important as I know it can be, a little part of me is happy with my Boys’ Club. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from my experience with debate came not from the Cross-Examinations or the impromptu speeches, but from being one of the only female serious debaters in my division. Boys who didn’t want to respect, talk, or be fair to me were forced to admit I was within their inner circle of competitors, and now approach me with—if still not consideration—some strange form of admiration. I gained a reputation, not as the girl, but as the challenger, and I learned how to brave the scariest of situations. I learned to lose, to be embarrassed, to debate boys a foot taller than me with full beards and boys with huge groups of friends who followed them in to watch the debate, murmuring intimidating things as they passed me. I’ve made enemies, I’ve made great friends, and I’ve learned what it feels like to be victorious and take full responsibility for that. I’ve been competitive, arrogant, witty, cut-throat, snobbish, and ridiculously geeky. Most importantly, I’ve learned to break into the Boys’ Club, and now I’ll never forget how.

Fiona is in the tenth grade. You can learn more about her at her own website http://barbarasangels.com/index.html.