ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses particularly on data related to female participation. It investigates how styles, leves of tudy, and languages relate to gender diversity in competitive debate. In and outside of the United States, scholars exploring gender issues in policy debate, parliamentary debate, and other formats of forensic competitions revealed that female debaters are generally underrepresented at tournaments, have lower retention rates, and are more subject to discrimination and harassment. While plenty of anecdotal evidence and individual testimonies attest to challenges facing women debaters in Japan, no systematic research to date documents debate’s relationship to gender. One notable characteristic of competitive debate in Japan adds an interesting twist to gender dynamics within the Japanese debate community: the longstanding popularity of English debate.
