Sep 29, 2023 At 11:12 AM EDT
Academic debate is an activity that has been traditionally dominated by white men. But one Los Angeles-based debate coach is proving that the girls on her team are ready to "shake things up."
Desma Marquez, a history student at Los Angeles Mission College, has returned to her alma mater, CHAMPS Charter High School of the Arts in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. She had originally moved to the high school in her junior year and joined the debate team to help get more involved.
"I really just wanted to use my voice a bit more, and I was starting to get really into activism so I was looking for something that could help educate me a little more and help me with speaking," she told Newsweek.
Marquez debated for two years before graduating in 2021. While attending college, she continued to volunteer as a debate judge for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Urban Debate League (LAMDL) and serving as a fellow for the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues (NAUDL) and an alumni ambassador for the 2023 Urban Debate National Championship.
When Marquez heard that her former high school debate coach was stepping down, she volunteered to help the new coach, who had little debate experience, run the team.
"It's very hard, I didn't realize how hard it was [to coach]," she said. "I have very big respect for my coaches because it's hard, just working with teenagers in general is hard, but you have to really be on top of it and explain these really difficult arguments to these kids."
Now, she is the sole volunteer coach in the program, making her one of the youngest and less experienced in her league. While it's a point of insecurity for Marquez, her debaters don't seem to mind.
"Since our team is small, we feel like a family," sophomore Bella Villafana told Newsweek.
Alexis Schweiger, also a sophomore, adds that she joined debate to find a supportive community, which is exactly what she found on this team.
"I think my favorite part [of debate] is having a whole community around you," she said.
Marquez's coaching style seems to be effective, as the 2023-2024 team has grown from only about four debaters to 14 in one year.
"We've actually started to gain more interest now, so it's going to be really nice to have some more kids on the team," she said. "It's amazing to see that we've actually grown in numbers."
Her debaters say Marquez hits a good balance between being tough and comforting. She can be strong, but she also shows her team that she genuinely cares about them.
While coaches on bigger teams can ignore debaters, pick favorites or "act like [participants] are dumb for not understanding," Schweiger said Marquez "really takes the time to explain."
Marquez also serves as an example and role model for the young girls on the team facing off in an activity that has been traditionally comprised of men.
"Having Desma as our coach and seeing how she handles the debate field and seeing how she uplifts herself in a male-dominated space is really important," Schweiger said. "She's a very strong person and carries herself really well."
And Marquez has had to be strong as a woman of color in debate, a sport in which she said men tend to overpower women during rounds and let their biases against women be known.
She said she has experienced plenty of instances of men talking down to her or treating her like she's not smart enough to debate them as a student as well as a coach. These, unfortunately, are some of the experiences that help create a bond with the team.
"It's hard, we've faced some people who are misogynistic towards our team," Villafana said. "We have each other and our shared experience to lean on especially because we're a girl team, we have that sense of community."
Schweiger said debate is a "rollercoaster" of emotion; one second, she's nervous, then confident, then back to being nervous. But when subtle misogyny is added to the mix, it adds a layer of frustration as well as motivation to win.
Whether it's a judgmental look when they sit down across from their male opponents or hearing boys "mansplain" her argument back to her, Schweiger said the subtle misogyny adds frustration to the already nerve-wracking debate process.
"[Boys in debate] have this sort of mental superiority thing of already assuming that they know everything and you're just a girl," she said.
Thankfully, she added, being part of the CHAMPS team creates a strong support system that empowers her and motivates her to prove everyone wrong.
"Anyone can debate and a female can definitely do it better," she joked.
Confidence is key in combatting such behavior from male opponents. But that confidence must come "with a bite," Marquez said.
She, therefore, is teaching her girls to be more "aggressive" than they normally would be when presenting their arguments or going head-to-head with boys in cross-examination. This includes using an assertive tone of voice and strong body language to appear more intimidating to their male opponents to get their point across and show that "they're not somebody to be messed with or pushed around."
The debaters said they've learned to simply call out the biases and misogyny during their rebuttal speeches, where Villafana said she and her partner let their opponents know that "we know our cases, we are the ones who have been studying this."
This level of confidence does not disappear once they step out of the debate round, but bleeds into all aspects of the students' lives. In high school, Marquez said her debaters are at an age where they can "feel really insecure" and "feel really small at times." Debate, she said, is a way to combat those feelings.
"It's such a delight to see my students when they've become more confident and more assertive and feel better about speaking out in general or in classes," Marquez said. "It's nice to see those lessons are actually coming and helping them grow. It's just all about their confidence."
Both Villafana and Schweiger expressed how debate has improved their communication skills in every aspect of their lives. Whether that means sticking up for themselves or articulating points more clearly, debate helped them realize that their voices matter.
Schweiger said the confidence she's gained has empowered her to show she "doesn't care when men are rude."
"It makes them realize that you're not getting scared just because a man is sitting in the room across from you," she said. "We're a mostly female team, and we are going to debate and we don't care if you like it or not. We are going to debate."
Learning to be confident has empowered the team when running kritiks that challenge societal systems or challenge opponents to argue the impacts of the facts behind their sometimes "fancy language."
With this year's national high school policy debate topic about income inequality, Marquez said the team is excited to run new affirmatives that focus on social issues that the debaters are really passionate about.
Schweiger is developing a case about the pay gap for Jewish women, adding evidence about how Jewish women still face antisemitism, while Villafana is working on a case about the rates and media attention in human trafficking cases involving Indigenous women compared to white women. Other debaters on the team are focusing on areas like the treatment of Mexican farmworkers in California and gentrification in Los Angeles.
While they know the impacts of participating in debate are plenty, the girls also want to win and prove that girls belong in the sport.
"We're here, we're female, we know that we can do it," Villafana said.
