More efforts need to be made by the University Philosophical Society (the Phil) to ensure gender equality among speakers in chamber and competitive debating, according to past and present members of the society.
Following an all-male chamber debate two weeks ago, at which “disgraceful” comments were made by some speakers and a female member of the audience was asked to stand up by one of the speakers, past and present members of the society have criticised the debate’s gender imbalance, as well as the phrasing of a motion: “This House Believes that Middle Eastern Women Need Western Feminism.” The motion was subsequently changed this week by the Phil after widespread public criticism.
Speaking to The University Times, Sadhbh Nuanán Ní Dhonnabháin, who served as Pro-Debates Convenor of the Phil and ran unsuccessfully for the position of Debates Convenor last year, said that the absence of any women speakers happened because “there isn’t enough of an effort being made”.
“They all know what to do, and they are nice people, but it’s just a lack of effort and a lack of awareness”, she said.
A current member of the Phil, who previously served on council and spoke to The University Times on the condition of anonymity because they feared backlash over their comments, said that the week overall was “a very bad start” to the year for the society.
“It’s surprising for people, because this is not the Phil they joined”, the person said.
In an email statement to The University Times, Sorcha Ryder, the President of the Phil, said: “It was extremely unfortunate that we were unable to confirm female speakers for the Irexit debate. We are unhappy about this as it is not our normal practice, and not something we are going to continue for the rest of the year.”
Speaking to The University Times, Julie Davis, who served as Debates Convenor of the Hist last year and was formerly a member of the Phil, said “it’s very common” that a society will not “get the perfect ratio” of male and female speakers. In that scenario, she said, “you sort of take it into your own hands to ask”.
Davis said: “I think what happened is, they didn’t get any women and they sort of thought, ‘because there’s a feminist debate next week, there’s no point’. I think it’s very much a lack of effort as opposed to there being no woman around who was able to speak at it.”
Davis said that from her experience, “it’s usually really easy to pull people in” for debates held early in the year.
In an email statement to The University Times, Jacob Woolf, who participated in the debate, said it would be “probably better to ask the women involved in Trinity debating” for their thoughts. “It’s more a reflection on the need to attract more women to debating in the first place and giving themselves a pool to draw on”, he said.
In addition to the lack of gender balance, a female member of the audience, Sophie Furlong Tighe, was asked to stand during the debate by a speaker, Pierce O’Meara, who also sits on Phil council. The incident was described by Ní Dhonnabháin as “absolutely disgraceful”. The episode occurred after Furlong Tighe criticised the lack of female representation at the debate on Twitter.
“Generally how that happened, or how those guys felt that it was okay to try and publicly humiliate a woman for pointing out that there was no women there, is absolutely disgraceful”, Ní Dhonnabháin said.
Speaking to The University Times, Furlong Tighe described the event as “super humiliating”. “Members of Phil council were looking at me and kind of grinning and stuff”, she said.
In an email statement to The University Times, Ryder said the society prioritises “respect and decorum in the chamber”.
“I do disagree with this woman being called out during that speech and am very sorry that it happened”, she said. “We have communicated with and apologised to the woman involved.”
Furlong Tighe said she appreciated the apologies, but said “the culture within the Phil which this was allowed to happen in does deeply concern me, as a female competitive debater as well as just a member of the Phil”.
On September 14th, in response to Furlong Tighe’s tweet about the debate, a Phil council member, Niall Prior, encouraged anyone with queries about the debate’s speaking order to contact him by email. “I would enjoy being given the opportunity to discuss with anyone interested their problems, and explain ours, before, perhaps, they call us out on them”, he said in a tweet.
Ní Dhonnabháin described the response as “appalling”: “What Sophie said wasn’t wrong, and I don’t even think she went about it in a particularly offensive way. And I think Niall saying, ‘oh, well she publicly called us out so we’re going to publicly call her out’, that’s just really fucked up.”
“There seems to be something off if he thinks it’s okay to do something like that, because it just objectively isn’t, when the Phil were in the wrong for not having any female debaters”, she said.
In an email statement to The University Times, Ryder defended Prior’s tweet, which was retweeted by the Phil. “I do not think”, she said, “that this is an attempt to limit public criticism of the Phil. It’s quite the opposite. It’s an acceptance of responsibility and an honest call for constructive criticism and open feedback”.
The member of the Phil who spoke anonymously said: “I think you should recognise that when people have criticisms they are probably not coming from the place of anti-Phil or anti-Hist.”
Along with Davis, Ní Dhonnabháin organised the Women’s Open – an all-women debating competition co-organised with the Hist – last year. She said: “I don’t think the Phil is any more sexist than anything else, but they do have that platform so they should make more of an effort.”
“Council is a pretty female-heavy majority this year, but it did literally make someone like Pierce standing up and making Sophie stand up for however long he made her stand up for, to fuck that completely”, she said.
The good work, she said, being done by Pro-Debates Convenors Lucie McKnight and Amelia Melanson, “could be badly marred by what’s happened in the last few weeks”.
Ryder said the Phil is “absolutely” a welcoming place for women. “I would never have even gotten involved in this Society in first year if they weren’t so welcoming and encouraging to myself and all the other women around me”, she said.
“There has been 4 female Presidents of the Phil in the last 6 years which is an incredible achievement. I have received so much guidance and inspiration from other women in the Phil who encouraged me to run for presidency, have supported me since day one and truly made this Society a home for me and so many other women.”
Last week, the Phil cancelled its feminist debate after widespread criticism of the motion, including from past council members. In a tweet, Umang Kalra, who served as Pro-Secretary on last year’s Phil council, said: “I feel extremely angry that this motion was set. It is part of a larger tendency within college debating to minimise world issues and pretending we are benefitting ANYONE by reducing them to 7 minute speeches in rooms full of (mostly) white people.”
Ryder said: “When discussions for the feminist motion were taking place, we believed, that with the right speakers, it could be an interesting debate about different visions of feminism. As stated in the post from the Phil’s facebook page, we now understand that we were being insensitive and as such we extended our most sincere apologies and pulled the debate.”
