Misogyny at Glasgow Ancients - Marlena Valles

Taken from https://www.facebook.com/notes/marlena-valles/misogyny-at-glasgow-ancients-a-response/10151264345151784

Misogyny at Glasgow Ancients: A Response
by Marlena Valles on Sunday, March 3, 2013 at 7:40pm ·

This weekend was Glasgow University Union's annual Ancients competition. For those who don’t know what happened, during mine and my partner’s speeches, in opening government, we were “shame”-d and booed by members of the audience whenever we spoke about how the motion ‘This House Regrets the Centralization of Religion’ affected women (My partner spoke about Leila Ahmed and female clergy and I spoke about dogmatic opposition to contraception and Catholics who identified as pro-choice). We both realised why we were being booed: it was because we were advocating for women’s rights, speaking in the GUU. It was only when one of the men making the misogynistic comments and interruptions had the nerve to stand up in the floor debate and very sarcastically say, “The GUU has been proudly admitting women for thirty three years and we are committed to equality” when a member of the audience bravely stood up and responded in a rousing five-minute floor speech telling the entire chamber that the men who were booing us were whispering *women* after shouting “shame” at all of our points and making patronizing comments about our dresses. Her brilliant speech called them out and received a standing ovation from a large majority of the chamber and is without a doubt, the most inspiring thing I have seen in debating.

I understand the way that the GUU “bear pit” chamber works, I have spoken in outrounds at Ancients since my first year and last year, was a guest speaker for the Facist party at one of the Union’s famous Parliamentaries. I am fine with speaking to the gallery and having audience members clap when they like a point and even say “shame” when they don’t. What I’m not okay with is people interrupting speeches to be misogynistic. It is difficult to speak confidently to an audience that is booing you for the sole reason that you are a woman in a dress talking about women’s rights, especially when you are the only girls in the final (which is depressingly often the case on the Scottish debating circuit). I realize that it was only a few men who don’t usually debate competitively that were involved with the heckling. The problem was that it was the entire Union that seemed to be weirdly proud of its misogynistic roots throughout the competition. The social Friday night was a pub quiz which included the question, “In 1980 the GUU had a vote to allow women into the Union. There is an annual dinner to honour the men who voted against the motion– how many men were there?” and the two GUU teams participating in the quiz whooped and banged their hands on the table in support of the voters against.

After the final, I had six separate members of the GUU, many of whom I have been friends with for years, approach me and give the exact same apologist speech - “I’m sorry that they did that, but they aren’t bad guys and it’s just how it is here and how they are. They are only joking”. We were told that that was the GUU and that it was “part of the course” and our fault for calling ourselves QMU A. My partner and I were a composite team, as Ancients is an Open, and Ancients has a policy of only allowing serious sounding team names. QMU was Glasgow University’s women’s union and as an all-female team (one of four at a twenty-eight team competition) the description fit. Later, as I was getting a drink, one of the men who was booing us said quite audibly “Get that woman out of my chamber” as his GUU friends, who had minutes ago apologised for his behaviour, laughed along.

This is my question: Members of the GUU clearly knew that this was something that happened. They knew that certain members would boo women if they spoke about women’s rights. Why on earth were they allowed to come to observe the final and why were they not asked to leave after or at the very least, issue a genuine apology to the speakers that they had rudely interrupted with their misogyny?

The reason that I am writing this post is because at Ancients, nothing has changed over the last three years. I remember when I was a first year, in 2011, the opening PowerPoint read “Proudly admitting women since 1980” with the word 'proudly' crossed out. I feel so sorry for the women that debate in that Union, especially because the reasoning for why none of them stand up against it as told to me by three senior GUU women was that that is just how things are done and “If you can’t beat them, join them” which is intolerable. The sexism of the GUU isn’t quaint and it is not a tradition to be jokingly celebrated. I appreciate the efforts of members within the GUU to make it better and maybe that incident needed to happen because we were told by many senior GUU female members that they couldn’t do anything about it without being laughed down. Until this is genuinely dealt with, as the director of training for the Edinburgh University Debates Union, I would be incredibly wary of sending female first years to Ancients next year and will certainly not be attending in the future unless there is assurance that this won’t happen again.

This controversy has been more frustrating than anything I have ever encountered in debating. I have spoken on motions that I thought were beyond the pale and I’ve had people say quite rude things to me in debates but I have never seen such an abysmal response from a Union for something so clearly sexist. I cannot imagine that if the same situation happened but audience members in a large final were shouting out racist or homophobic interjections the response from the hosting institution would be “That is just how it is done here” or “You provoked them with your team name”.

I would like to thank the CA’s Pam Cohn and John Beechnoir as well as the equity officer, John McKee, for making it exceptionally clear that these comments should not be tolerated. If only the GUU would do the same.

Andreas C. Lazar, Ben Woolgar, Sharmila Parmanand and 288 others like this.


Joss Rylance Murdoch Christ, this is the most deeply depressing thing I've heard about the Scottish Debating circuit in a long time, out of interest, I've heard one referred to as an ex-President of the GUU, any case for a name and shame? If it helps I believe that Ancients would lose far more from your absence than you would miss from not being there.
13 hours ago · Like


Lorcan O'Neill This is horrific. I hope there is quite a big deal made out of this
13 hours ago · Like


Ellen Robertson This is absolutely unacceptable. Thank you for speaking out about it.
13 hours ago · Like · 2


Benjamin Dory I don't even understand what led those people to come and watch the final, it clearly wasn't their thing. Booing when debaters show how life is being made unfairly harder for a group of people is like booing at a football match when any team scores a goal. I don't know what other values they were expecting to hear in the final but I'm very glad they were disappointed.
13 hours ago · Like · 6


Fiona Brittle I honestly cannot believe this happened. I am genuinely shocked and completely incensed. I hear Kitty was a hero, and I sorely wish I could have seen it. This sort of backwards behaviour is confounding, and a horrible reminder that our society is still entirely broken. Behaviour like this is unacceptable, and needs to stop.
13 hours ago · Like · 1


Joe Dyer I have never been in so much agreement with anything ever written. Absolutely shameful. i am proud to debate with alot of the guu but the lethargic response of too many was an utter disgrace.
13 hours ago via mobile · Like · 1


Kitty Maeve Parker Brooks You two girls were brilliant and Pam was a great co-CA. Congratulations on being more than a bit awesome.
13 hours ago · Like · 1


Imogen Dewar Hi Marlena
I am deeply upset by your post for many reasons and am currently meeting with the GUU Board of Management to brief them on the weekend and write our response. I dont have the power to comment as an individual given this was a GUU event, but ...See More
13 hours ago · Like


Marlena Valles Imogen, certainly when you, the convenor of the competition, wrote "Idiots, funny but still idiots" in reference to the aforementioned actions you believed that social media was an acceptable way of expressing feelings. But yes, a meeting would be great.
13 hours ago · Like · 45


Marlena Valles Also, quite importantly, Rebecca and I did raise our concerns to about ten GUU debaters and nothing was done so facebook seemed to be a necessary last resort.
13 hours ago · Like · 11


Helen Clarke keep being amazing marlena. i draw inspiration from your strength. x
13 hours ago · Like


Emmet Ryan I hold the view that social media is often the best place to air such concerns as the response shows you are not a lone voice in the ether.
13 hours ago via mobile · Like · 14


Harold Raitt If people make outrageous comments in a public forum, what on earth is wrong about commenting on, analysing and challenging them and the underlying problems in another public forum? We must be as public and vocal as possible in tackling injustice. So l...See More
13 hours ago via mobile · Like · 11


Harold Raitt "Many of my best friends are gay."
"I know lots of black people."
Neither of these were acceptable excuses for homophobia or racism. The only acceptable response is to condemn discrimination, apologise when it does and realise that if you can state the two things above, you can never tolerate saying (or letting anyone else say) certain things either.
12 hours ago via mobile · Like


Oskar Pablo Iverovski Imogen, while I understand that things are much better than they were and got better over time, why was the offending ex-president allowed to remain at the social after the incident (and as far as I'm aware) not even asked to leave. Many other unions h...See More
12 hours ago · Like · 6


Rebecca Meredith Imogen : My facebook account is my personal account - I may express my experiences or opinions as I wish. Indeed your accusation is immensely hypocritical given you yourself commented that the sexism of GUU members was "funny" on facebook. Moreover, Ma...See More
12 hours ago · Like · 20


Rebecca Meredith Furthermore, as Oskar notes, the individuals were not asked to leave, and they openly made further comments to Marlena during the social. No effort was made to exclude them either before the final or after the final
12 hours ago · Like · 7


Harold Raitt "The actions of a few do not represent ..." Actually, they do. Because, to all intents and purposes here, inaction is an action. If you can sit in your seat while such things are said, if you can brush them off afterwards, you have acted, whether you like it or not.
12 hours ago via mobile · Like · 6


Robert Nimmo Marlena, 'like' doesn't really seem an appropritate responce to this. While I deeply regret what by all accounts seems to have been a disgusting display, I equally deeply admire the bravery and passion found in your description and Rebecca's and the co...See More
12 hours ago · Like · 15


Sam Block Seriously? You're criticised on facebook for your silence when members are aggressively misogynist and your response is that we ought to maintain facebook silence about it?
12 hours ago · Like · 39


Stefano Imbriano How is that something to be expected? If that's par for the course at GUU then the correct response it to fucking change that. Big props to everyone who's spoken out, even with this opposition, it's seriously brave and admirable. As for the apologists, fuck you, you're just as culpable, you're why people think it's okay to make incidents like this happen.
12 hours ago · Like · 1


Hera Hussain I debated at the GUU in parliamentaries and occassionaly in IVs from 2008-12. I have faced this so many times! I was a Deputy Head Clark, Club leader and Dialectic Treasurer and the GUU chamber makes it abundantly clear the moment you stand up to speak...See More
12 hours ago · Like · 14


Niall Kennedy A very unpleasant story. Sadly there are many unpleasant aspects about the culture of the GUU, even today. I hope this finally spurs some people within the organisation to take a good look at themselves.
10 hours ago · Like · 4


Vignesh Ashok Imogen, a good official response would be to apologise - unreservedly - and guarantee that the union would take all measures to ensure that this sort of thing never happened again.
10 hours ago · Like · 6


Johan Båge Absolutely shameful and worse still that they try to shame you again for speaking about it. I applaud your and Rebecca's responces to this disgusting behavior. Your post has value that goes beyond one tournament, which is why it's being shared right no...See More
10 hours ago · Like · 3


Russell Haswell How terribly depressing to be reminded of the bad old days. I always loved and hated the GUU, seems many people still feel the same way. Marlena Valles you are brave and awesome.
5 hours ago · Like


Wilma Harper Not only is this behaviour totally unacceptable, I suspect it is also illegal under the Equality Act 2010 as it would be seen as harassment. Even if you don't want to pursue this, I would hope the University authorities and whoever funds the GUU would want to take action because of the serious reputational risk.
3 hours ago · Like · 1


Kirsty MacDonald-Russell I'm so impressed that Marlena Valles and Rebecca Meredith have stood up about this. I gather that Kitty Maeve Parker Brooks also did some sterling work in defending them too. When I started my debating career (in the early 2000s) I went to Ancients, wh...See More
22 minutes ago · Edited · Like · 4