Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I've been bothered a while by what I consider the male slant to Trash. Although there are a few "girl" subjects that come up relatively regularly, like soap operas and musicals, these are the exceptions. I was surprised, for instance, that Twilight only got a (very easy) bonus part last Trash Regionals, and nothing this year. Glee also didn't get any mention. There is hardly a CW show or chickflick, while the music questions tend to stay away from pop. On the other hand, other than the obvious sports, Trash is centered around "boy" pop culture. There are so many questions about video games, comic books, etc. that are just not what most girls do. On the other hand, the token inclusion of the WNBA frustrates girls just as much as boys. Why not adding more sports that have famous women like gymnastics, figure skating, swimming?
I know that the questions reflect who is playing: I know I am one of the few girls in the world of quizbowl. This doesn't have to be the case though. When I go to trivia nights at bars, I see just as many girls as boys. I have seen a lot of girls who love trivia stop coming to meetings because they get tired of not knowing the answers.
So I want your thoughts? Should we try to change Trash? I don't think asking more questions about women in sports is enough--there has to a slight shift in the content of all the questions.
We can all do our part to write more girl friendly questions. This winter, I am finally fulfilling my goal to write a "Girls Pack."
I know that the questions reflect who is playing: I know I am one of the few girls in the world of quizbowl. This doesn't have to be the case though. When I go to trivia nights at bars, I see just as many girls as boys. I have seen a lot of girls who love trivia stop coming to meetings because they get tired of not knowing the answers.
So I want your thoughts? Should we try to change Trash? I don't think asking more questions about women in sports is enough--there has to a slight shift in the content of all the questions.
We can all do our part to write more girl friendly questions. This winter, I am finally fulfilling my goal to write a "Girls Pack."
Daniella Nahmias
BU Quiz Bowl
BU Quiz Bowl
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
There was a bonus about Glee this year.
Besides women's sports, what do you think would make a more "gender neutral" set?
(Note: I played TRASH Regs with two women who did very well.)
Edit: I think TRASH needs to be more "audience friendly" in general.In my opinion, TRASH is written for a specific audience of late 20ish, 30ish people. I think if TRASH was written to reflect things that people actually like now, both men and women would enjoy it more. For instance, tossups on TV shows watched now, as opposed to Gimme a Break or Dream On.
Besides women's sports, what do you think would make a more "gender neutral" set?
(Note: I played TRASH Regs with two women who did very well.)
Edit: I think TRASH needs to be more "audience friendly" in general.In my opinion, TRASH is written for a specific audience of late 20ish, 30ish people. I think if TRASH was written to reflect things that people actually like now, both men and women would enjoy it more. For instance, tossups on TV shows watched now, as opposed to Gimme a Break or Dream On.
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I'm curious how many academic tournaments you are judging your assessments about the world of quizbowl on.
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
So, I'm kind of bothered by your uniform assessment of things like video games as not what girls do and learning about Twilight, gymnastics, figure skating, and swimming as what girls do. I'm not a trash player habitually, but of the two trash tournaments I played, most of the questions I answered were on music (and no, not girlpop or whatever), nerd trash (Star Trek and the like), and food (could be construed either way). Obviously, the two of us don't make for any kind of cohort study, but my point is that there's variance in knowledge no matter the gender. As far as the problem with girl retention... The same advice applies as to retention in general, regardless of gender or trash/academic: Rather than change answer selection altogether, why not encourage people to learn and explore genres they might not have experience with? The point is expanding your horizons and learning, not pandering to preexisting knowledge.daniellan wrote:I've been bothered a while by what I consider the male slant to Trash. Although there are a few "girl" subjects that come up relatively regularly, like soap operas and musicals, these are the exceptions. I was surprised, for instance, that Twilight only got a (very easy) bonus part last Trash Regionals, and nothing this year. Glee also didn't get any mention. There is hardly a CW show or chickflick, while the music questions tend to stay away from pop. On the other hand, other than the obvious sports, Trash is centered around "boy" pop culture. There are so many questions about video games, comic books, etc. that are just not what most girls do. On the other hand, the token inclusion of the WNBA frustrates girls just as much as boys. Why not adding more sports that have famous women like gymnastics, figure skating, swimming?
I know that the questions reflect who is playing: I know I am one of the few girls in the world of quizbowl. This doesn't have to be the case though. When I go to trivia nights at bars, I see just as many girls as boys. I have seen a lot of girls who love trivia stop coming to meetings because they get tired of not knowing the answers.
So I want your thoughts? Should we try to change Trash? I don't think asking more questions about women in sports is enough--there has to a slight shift in the content of all the questions.
We can all do our part to write more girl friendly questions. This winter, I am finally fulfilling my goal to write a "Girls Pack."
Hannah Kirsch
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014
"Wow, those Scandinavians completely thorbjorned my hard-earned political capital."
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Yeah: if your retention of quizbowlers is suffering because trash tournaments aren't gender-neutral enough for them, there's a full schedule of academic tournaments just waiting to be played.
Andrew Watkins
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I know I'm being very general and very stereotypical because I want to get my point across . I too love the nerd (Stargate/Star Trek/Dune) stuff. I have only participated in about 4 Trash Tournaments, but I have heard questions from about twenty through practices. Of course, Trash Regionals is what is freshest in my mind.
I agree that part of the problem is the age crowd thing--but I still think it's more than that. Here are some things I would like added:
Movies: I feel like at least for comedy, there is a divide between chickflicks and stuff that's supposed to appeal to guys. I would like to see a little more of Pride and Prejudice and a little less of Fratpack stuff.
TV: I would like to see a little more of primetime soap operas (i.e. One Tree Hill).
I would like more magazine/fashion added in. I'm sure there is more I could add, but I can't think of anything right now.
I am purposefully thinking of the most "girly" things I can think of. I am by no means saying that this means that only girls will get it or that girls won't get other things. I'm just saying that I think that pop culture is gendered. Guys are not supposed to like Twilight. Girls are not supposed to like boxing. However, I know guys who like twilight and girls who like boxing.
I agree that part of the problem is the age crowd thing--but I still think it's more than that. Here are some things I would like added:
Movies: I feel like at least for comedy, there is a divide between chickflicks and stuff that's supposed to appeal to guys. I would like to see a little more of Pride and Prejudice and a little less of Fratpack stuff.
TV: I would like to see a little more of primetime soap operas (i.e. One Tree Hill).
I would like more magazine/fashion added in. I'm sure there is more I could add, but I can't think of anything right now.
I am purposefully thinking of the most "girly" things I can think of. I am by no means saying that this means that only girls will get it or that girls won't get other things. I'm just saying that I think that pop culture is gendered. Guys are not supposed to like Twilight. Girls are not supposed to like boxing. However, I know guys who like twilight and girls who like boxing.
Daniella Nahmias
BU Quiz Bowl
BU Quiz Bowl
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Plenty of this stuff comes up in the trash questions in academic packets.daniellan wrote:I know I'm being very general and very stereotypical because I want to get my point across . I too love the nerd (Stargate/Star Trek/Dune) stuff. I have only participated in about 4 Trash Tournaments, but I have heard questions from about twenty through practices. Of course, Trash Regionals is what is freshest in my mind.
I agree that part of the problem is the age crowd thing--but I still think it's more than that. Here are some things I would like added:
Movies: I feel like at least for comedy, there is a divide between chickflicks and stuff that's supposed to appeal to guys. I would like to see a little more of Pride and Prejudice and a little less of Fratpack stuff.
TV: I would like to see a little more of primetime soap operas (i.e. One Tree Hill).
I would like more magazine/fashion added in. I'm sure there is more I could add, but I can't think of anything right now.
I am purposefully thinking of the most "girly" things I can think of. I am by no means saying that this means that only girls will get it or that girls won't get other things. I'm just saying that I think that pop culture is gendered. Guys are not supposed to like Twilight. Girls are not supposed to like boxing. However, I know guys who like twilight and girls who like boxing.
Susan
UChicago alum (AB 2003, PhD 2009)
Member emerita, ACF
UChicago alum (AB 2003, PhD 2009)
Member emerita, ACF
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I'd like to think GARBAGE did a good job at this, and I'm confident Mike Bentley's forthcoming CULT will be excellent in this regard (as well as every other).
Fred Morlan
University of Kentucky CoP, 2017
International Quiz Bowl Tournaments, CEO, co-owner
former PACE member, president, etc.
former hsqbrank manager, former NAQT writer & subject editor, former hsqb Administrator/Chief Administrator
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Having attempted to write in a more balanced way for several tournaments(RC Cola being my most recent attempt to write a tournament to please everybody), I've discussed this very concept at length with a lot of people. I don't really think there's an intentional bias toward women at trash events, but you're looking at a statistical bias due to the number of writers who are men.
Writers write about things they know, so you get an imbalance that way, since not a lot of guys read The Devil Wears Prada, or went out to see The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants opening weekend. When they attempt to pander to the female demographic, you usually get some poorly written bonus on Twilight or The Hills. TRASH suffers from the same problem, since most of their writers are over 30, so you're not as likely to see iCarly, Dead Rising, and Bakugan questions come up. This year, TRASH had their videogame guy leave, and everybody (rightfully) complained about the questions being terrible and obvious, because they were written by people with less experience in the field.
So, it's a double-edged sword. Do you want 1/1 "Girl" Stuff, where someone just writes a quickly-written bonus on Project Runway that mentions Christian, fierce, and Tim Gunn?
Or do you just accept the fact that generally people write questions they personally find interesting, and that Jay Cutler is probably more important to them than Donna Karan.
(I mean, have you SEEN the average quizbowl player? Fashion is not really an area of expertise)
To attempt to answer the question, I think the answer is yes. If I've got to be totally stereotypical, based on 20-some-odd trash tournaments I've been to, the ladies love the trash Lit and reality TV. So, adding a little more from those areas couldn't hurt. And I guess figure skating and gymnastics are traditionally female-dominated sports....but they're really only in the public eye come Olympics season. And I suppose you could throw in a little more CW and MTV content, since Gossip Girl and My Super Sweet 16 are probably not watched by a lot of guys(Except to watch Leighton Meester).
I think the best way to fix it might be the last part of your original post. Write that Girls' Pack, add more "girl" content to your other submitted packets, and keep coming to every tournament you can. If there's more female attendance and input, you'll get more female-friendly questions. (Also, I'd like to mirror that Girls Pack at the RC Cola Tournament, so send me a PM)
I do think that the "Boys' Club" atmosphere of quizbowl could probably be tuned down a bit. While playing with a lady on my team, you hear a lot of derisive "Oh, of course you got that, you're a girl" comments. Or people who think that your teammate is named The Girl, y'know as opposed to her actual name.
As a side-note to Fred, how was GARBAGE more girl-friendly than other tournaments? Looking through GARBAGE packets, I see tossups on the Easy-Bake Oven and True Blood, but nothing really different than any other tournament. And as it would seem that everyone on the editing team for CULT has a Y chromosome, I don't know how that's going to be any different, either.
Writers write about things they know, so you get an imbalance that way, since not a lot of guys read The Devil Wears Prada, or went out to see The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants opening weekend. When they attempt to pander to the female demographic, you usually get some poorly written bonus on Twilight or The Hills. TRASH suffers from the same problem, since most of their writers are over 30, so you're not as likely to see iCarly, Dead Rising, and Bakugan questions come up. This year, TRASH had their videogame guy leave, and everybody (rightfully) complained about the questions being terrible and obvious, because they were written by people with less experience in the field.
So, it's a double-edged sword. Do you want 1/1 "Girl" Stuff, where someone just writes a quickly-written bonus on Project Runway that mentions Christian, fierce, and Tim Gunn?
Or do you just accept the fact that generally people write questions they personally find interesting, and that Jay Cutler is probably more important to them than Donna Karan.
(I mean, have you SEEN the average quizbowl player? Fashion is not really an area of expertise)
To attempt to answer the question, I think the answer is yes. If I've got to be totally stereotypical, based on 20-some-odd trash tournaments I've been to, the ladies love the trash Lit and reality TV. So, adding a little more from those areas couldn't hurt. And I guess figure skating and gymnastics are traditionally female-dominated sports....but they're really only in the public eye come Olympics season. And I suppose you could throw in a little more CW and MTV content, since Gossip Girl and My Super Sweet 16 are probably not watched by a lot of guys(Except to watch Leighton Meester).
I think the best way to fix it might be the last part of your original post. Write that Girls' Pack, add more "girl" content to your other submitted packets, and keep coming to every tournament you can. If there's more female attendance and input, you'll get more female-friendly questions. (Also, I'd like to mirror that Girls Pack at the RC Cola Tournament, so send me a PM)
I do think that the "Boys' Club" atmosphere of quizbowl could probably be tuned down a bit. While playing with a lady on my team, you hear a lot of derisive "Oh, of course you got that, you're a girl" comments. Or people who think that your teammate is named The Girl, y'know as opposed to her actual name.
As a side-note to Fred, how was GARBAGE more girl-friendly than other tournaments? Looking through GARBAGE packets, I see tossups on the Easy-Bake Oven and True Blood, but nothing really different than any other tournament. And as it would seem that everyone on the editing team for CULT has a Y chromosome, I don't know how that's going to be any different, either.
Michael Kearney, Vanderbilt '02
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Is this a trash thing? A Southeastern thing? I am a noted girl, and I played for ages, and I did not ever, ever get anything like this.I do think that the "Boys' Club" atmosphere of quizbowl could probably be tuned down a bit. While playing with a lady on my team, you hear a lot of derisive "Oh, of course you got that, you're a girl" comments. Or people who think that your teammate is named The Girl, y'know as opposed to her actual name.
Susan
UChicago alum (AB 2003, PhD 2009)
Member emerita, ACF
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I haven't played nearly as long as Susan, so I suppose there's still time for entertainingly blatant misogyny, but while I've heard "Of course you got that question on Yom Kippur, you're Brandeis," none of that has ever happened to me.myamphigory wrote:Is this a trash thing? A Southeastern thing? I am a noted girl, and I played for ages, and I did not ever, ever get anything like this.I do think that the "Boys' Club" atmosphere of quizbowl could probably be tuned down a bit. While playing with a lady on my team, you hear a lot of derisive "Oh, of course you got that, you're a girl" comments. Or people who think that your teammate is named The Girl, y'know as opposed to her actual name.
Hannah Kirsch
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I wouldn't know if it's specifically a trash thing, but it's not specifically Southern, since the same thing happened up at TRASHionals and Chicago Open Trash. It's probably more of a douchebag-thing, since the concept of "You're a BLANK, that's why you got that" is a comment made to massage your ego after someone else gets a question before you.
Michael Kearney, Vanderbilt '02
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
There are a few things that are blatantly male-biased that appear(ed) in trash packets, which are thankfully beginning to fade away. Luckily, you don't have to be a woman to realize that a question on pornography is a bad idea.
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I think there are certain areas of the trash distribution that will inherently put females at a disadvantage. The fact that sports generally make up 20% of a trash packet and are consumed by an audience that is overwhelmingly male is one such area. I can also see the argument that videogames and comics are also things that are traditionally liked by men more than women, although I think that's changing at least for videogames (especially if you take the time to write about games outside of male dominated genres like most "AAA" titles) and there are certainly women who enjoy comics (Brittany, for instance, is a much better comics player than I am). However, I'd assert that almost all movie, music and tv questions are pretty gender-neutral in who can answer them successfully.
I haven't really seen a huge difference in the playing abilities of females who play trash compared to those who play academic tournaments. In fact, I think it's slightly more common to see a dominant or at least competent female trash player than female academic player (for instance, in the college game I can only really think of Susan, Selene and Hannah as semi-active notable female academic players on the circuit). As has been discussed in other threads, for various reasons females are less abundant in quizbowl than men by a large percentage, and this is going to have ramifications on trash as well.
I also don't like the assertion that men are doomed to write a bunch of shitty, token "female" trash questions for all eternity. There's no reason why you can't research and write a good question on something like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (to use an earlier example) in the same way you do for any other question that you don't have first-hand knowledge of. This gets into the larger issue of people only writing on things they have first hand knowledge of, which is something that definitely needs to stop in trash, but that can be tackled in a separate discussion.
I haven't really seen a huge difference in the playing abilities of females who play trash compared to those who play academic tournaments. In fact, I think it's slightly more common to see a dominant or at least competent female trash player than female academic player (for instance, in the college game I can only really think of Susan, Selene and Hannah as semi-active notable female academic players on the circuit). As has been discussed in other threads, for various reasons females are less abundant in quizbowl than men by a large percentage, and this is going to have ramifications on trash as well.
I also don't like the assertion that men are doomed to write a bunch of shitty, token "female" trash questions for all eternity. There's no reason why you can't research and write a good question on something like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (to use an earlier example) in the same way you do for any other question that you don't have first-hand knowledge of. This gets into the larger issue of people only writing on things they have first hand knowledge of, which is something that definitely needs to stop in trash, but that can be tackled in a separate discussion.
Mike Bentley
Treasurer, Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Adviser, Quizbowl Team at University of Washington
University of Maryland, Class of 2008
Treasurer, Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Adviser, Quizbowl Team at University of Washington
University of Maryland, Class of 2008
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
There's a difference between writing a lot of questions on subjects that are patronizingly associated with women, and having a diverse answer selection that represents a wide area of subjects that are important in pop culture for various reasons. I believe we accomplished the latter.MichaelKearney wrote:As a side-note to Fred, how was GARBAGE more girl-friendly than other tournaments? Looking through GARBAGE packets, I see tossups on the Easy-Bake Oven and True Blood, but nothing really different than any other tournament. And as it would seem that everyone on the editing team for CULT has a Y chromosome, I don't know how that's going to be any different, either.
Another thing we did for GARBAGE, which I think increased the general tastefulness of the event, was omit material written for the purpose of being 'edgy', which is usually better described as questions written for the purpose of working in stupid pornography/etc references. N.W.A. quotes aside, I don't think we had anything in the set that would cause anyone to become upset.
And the reason I have such faith in CULT over TRASH is what CULT has that TRASH doesn't have: a highly competent and experienced chief editor who is responsible for a notably high percentage of good trash tournaments.
Fred Morlan
University of Kentucky CoP, 2017
International Quiz Bowl Tournaments, CEO, co-owner
former PACE member, president, etc.
former hsqbrank manager, former NAQT writer & subject editor, former hsqb Administrator/Chief Administrator
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
A lot of the fun of Trash (for me at least) is having embarrassing knowledge. And I am looking forward to Cult, and trying to bring a team down. Trash just needs to be more college player friendly, as that's the primary market.
Nalin
Scranton Middle School (2000-2003)
Brighton High School (2003-2007)
Michigan State University (2007-2011)
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Scranton Middle School (2000-2003)
Brighton High School (2003-2007)
Michigan State University (2007-2011)
Semi-Retired (2012-present)
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Another notable quizbowl female is my esteemed teammate, B. Spencer. (There are, of course, many others)
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Not an attempt to derail this thread, but every tournament has things that would make people upset. It's why we're adults, and why maybe high school teams should be warned about the content of trash tournaments. But there's no way that these lines couldn't have been edited in a different way.
"Jeffrey Ross once claimed that someone looked like she was fucked with this actresses dick at a roast. "
"The albums Fuck Me Jesus, Those of the Unlight, and ROM 5:12 were released by a Swedish black metal band of this name"
"This emotional song by The Who was raped and shat upon by Fred Durst, who deserves to die"
Add to that a tossup whose answer was "fellatio/oral sex", and a bonus on different notable vibrators, and come on. There's no sense in trying to tout GARBAGE as something above and beyond the realm of other tournaments as far as offensive content goes.
But these are things that I think editors need to keep an eye out for. Offensive content is one thing that can make your trash events less friendly to women, younger players, or more religious players(yeah, there are some Bible schools that come to quizbowl).
Unless you're directly quoting a Ice Cube song, there's really no reason to drop the n-word, and even then...you could probably use a different clue.
Rape isn't a term to use in reference to your childhood, one team beating another, or in anyway other than referencing it as a heinous act(a question used in Trashmasters last week started out with "A less notable rape from this show". There was probably a better way to start that.)
Helga Pataki from Hey Arnold and Ann Coulter are not bitches.
I realize that this stuff tends to come up less in academic tournaments, and that teams and editing groups want to write things you can't get away with normally. It's just something to be aware of when editing a tournament for a wide audience, considering the topic is thinking about ways to bring more people into our hobby.
"Jeffrey Ross once claimed that someone looked like she was fucked with this actresses dick at a roast. "
"The albums Fuck Me Jesus, Those of the Unlight, and ROM 5:12 were released by a Swedish black metal band of this name"
"This emotional song by The Who was raped and shat upon by Fred Durst, who deserves to die"
Add to that a tossup whose answer was "fellatio/oral sex", and a bonus on different notable vibrators, and come on. There's no sense in trying to tout GARBAGE as something above and beyond the realm of other tournaments as far as offensive content goes.
But these are things that I think editors need to keep an eye out for. Offensive content is one thing that can make your trash events less friendly to women, younger players, or more religious players(yeah, there are some Bible schools that come to quizbowl).
Unless you're directly quoting a Ice Cube song, there's really no reason to drop the n-word, and even then...you could probably use a different clue.
Rape isn't a term to use in reference to your childhood, one team beating another, or in anyway other than referencing it as a heinous act(a question used in Trashmasters last week started out with "A less notable rape from this show". There was probably a better way to start that.)
Helga Pataki from Hey Arnold and Ann Coulter are not bitches.
I realize that this stuff tends to come up less in academic tournaments, and that teams and editing groups want to write things you can't get away with normally. It's just something to be aware of when editing a tournament for a wide audience, considering the topic is thinking about ways to bring more people into our hobby.
Michael Kearney, Vanderbilt '02
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Here is how you remove any gender-bias from trash tournaments:
1. Write good questions on topics which are significant and accessible to the people playing, and when assessed holistically draw from a balanced cross-section of popular culture.
2. ??? (optional).
3. Profit.
If you do your job as an editor this gender nonsense shouldn't be an issue, and I concur with Fred's assertion that it really wasn't an issue in GARBAGE. The whole commentary about "only choosing the most stereotypically girly stuff" is sort of absurd, because for pretty much every example you listed, I can point to games where I watched males answer that question against females (to the assured joy of Rob Carson's heart, one of these moments is actually captured on video). This is not an issue with writers being too male-inclined, and it's not something we should solve by the abysmally poor idea of distribution affirmative action (PAGING WESTBROOK WHITE COURTESY PHONE). The problem, where it even exists, is simple: Bad writing!
TRASH usually skews lots of bad things - I suppose you could make the argument that "male" is one of them, but it's more of an issue of just not doing a good job of asking questions of the type I outlined above. It's not just women who would have felt shut out of disturbingly significant portions of questions at the most recent TRASH Regionals - you could probably pick any demographic (video gamers under the age of Methuselah, pro but not college football fans, deuterostomes) whose interests were poorly reflected. That's because the set did a crap job of doing that, and in general TRASH usually does a lackluster job, some progress last year notwithstanding. If you write questions on things people actually watch and listen to, these manufactured problems disappear.
Hey, it's cool if TRASH writers aren't interested in doing research to find this stuff out, and it sucks that the video game guy left. But it's my understanding that this didn't happen Friday before the tournament, so the solution to both these problems is simple: Bring in people who CAN write these questions. Are you telling me TRASH couldn't find someone to edit VIDEO GAME questions? I have a teammate who has written two video game tournaments who presumably would have either done it or found someone else competent to do it. I'd hazard a guess that, say, anyone who played JECHT at Minnesota last year would have done a better job with the video game distribution than this year's Regionals did. This all boils down to people being too lazy or uninterested to make their writing (or answer selection/whatever) better, or unwilling to bring in people who don't have that problem.
1. Write good questions on topics which are significant and accessible to the people playing, and when assessed holistically draw from a balanced cross-section of popular culture.
2. ??? (optional).
3. Profit.
If you do your job as an editor this gender nonsense shouldn't be an issue, and I concur with Fred's assertion that it really wasn't an issue in GARBAGE. The whole commentary about "only choosing the most stereotypically girly stuff" is sort of absurd, because for pretty much every example you listed, I can point to games where I watched males answer that question against females (to the assured joy of Rob Carson's heart, one of these moments is actually captured on video). This is not an issue with writers being too male-inclined, and it's not something we should solve by the abysmally poor idea of distribution affirmative action (PAGING WESTBROOK WHITE COURTESY PHONE). The problem, where it even exists, is simple: Bad writing!
TRASH usually skews lots of bad things - I suppose you could make the argument that "male" is one of them, but it's more of an issue of just not doing a good job of asking questions of the type I outlined above. It's not just women who would have felt shut out of disturbingly significant portions of questions at the most recent TRASH Regionals - you could probably pick any demographic (video gamers under the age of Methuselah, pro but not college football fans, deuterostomes) whose interests were poorly reflected. That's because the set did a crap job of doing that, and in general TRASH usually does a lackluster job, some progress last year notwithstanding. If you write questions on things people actually watch and listen to, these manufactured problems disappear.
Come on dude, I know you know better than this. Writers (that is, editors) shouldn't just be writing on things they know - indeed, one of the main criteria for choosing someone as an editor is an ability to produce a set or portion thereof that reflects a balanced distribution, rather than a cross-section of their own interests. Is this something TRASH isn't particularly aware of? I suppose it would explain a few things. If you just "write what you know," you're inherently going to do a shitty job as an editor. I've never edited a trash set, but I bet I could write competent questions on everything you just listed - I've seen the Devil Wears Prada (and like, so did millions of guys. . .), and I doubt it would take mega amounts of research to construct a tossup on traveling pants. I've never seen Twilight or The Hills, but I bet I could write bonuses on them that weren't poorly constructed - do you guys just write things from memory? Look stuff up!Writers write about things they know, so you get an imbalance that way, since not a lot of guys read The Devil Wears Prada, or went out to see The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants opening weekend. When they attempt to pander to the female demographic, you usually get some poorly written bonus on Twilight or The Hills.
First of all, all of those answers seem to fall somewhere on the spectrum of bad tossup ideas (particularly the last one, which led me to close a page immediately after conducting a google search I wish I could wipe from my memory). Again, this is the problem, not age or writer limitation or any of that other nonsense. I'm 22 and I don't like country music, but if you told me to write a tossup on pre-1980 country music, I wouldn't be producing things that converted in 2 rooms in the entire country.TRASH suffers from the same problem, since most of their writers are over 30, so you're not as likely to see iCarly, Dead Rising, and Bakugan questions come up. This year, TRASH had their videogame guy leave, and everybody (rightfully) complained about the questions being terrible and obvious, because they were written by people with less experience in the field.
Hey, it's cool if TRASH writers aren't interested in doing research to find this stuff out, and it sucks that the video game guy left. But it's my understanding that this didn't happen Friday before the tournament, so the solution to both these problems is simple: Bring in people who CAN write these questions. Are you telling me TRASH couldn't find someone to edit VIDEO GAME questions? I have a teammate who has written two video game tournaments who presumably would have either done it or found someone else competent to do it. I'd hazard a guess that, say, anyone who played JECHT at Minnesota last year would have done a better job with the video game distribution than this year's Regionals did. This all boils down to people being too lazy or uninterested to make their writing (or answer selection/whatever) better, or unwilling to bring in people who don't have that problem.
Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Whoops, I knew I was forgetting people. Sorry B. and anyone else I've left off.Cheynem wrote:Another notable quizbowl female is my esteemed teammate, B. Spencer. (There are, of course, many others)
Mike Bentley
Treasurer, Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Adviser, Quizbowl Team at University of Washington
University of Maryland, Class of 2008
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
This post is a joke. Being callously insensitive in describing an actual event related to sex assault is something people should have the awareness not to do. You're putting this on par with the trauma induced by hearing someone's opinion that Fred Durst raped a song by covering it? Come on.Michael Kearney wrote:PC Nonsense
As the author of that question, I picked the most notable album names I could because I assumed most people probably wouldn't be aware of individual (Swedish) songs by the band Marduk. That's a notable name (and their first and somewhat notorious release) and is more likely to induce a buzz on that clue than another randomly chosen album name, so that's the criteria I'm using when I'm writing a tossup designed to get people to buzz in on clues. Sure, people shouldn't put things in just to be dicks, but people who are offended by the fact that a band put out an album called "Fuck me Jesus" need to get over themselves. Surely such people are not less offended by questions related to boys kissing or Piss Christ or whatever, and we're not changing the distribution or tiptoeing around things because people might get upset. Besides, something tells me JC can probably take it."The albums Fuck Me Jesus, Those of the Unlight, and ROM 5:12 were released by a Swedish black metal band of this name"
Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Could Rom take it?
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota
"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
SEE THIS JUST GOES TO SHOW HOW INVISIBLE US SUBALTERNS ARE TO YOU POWERFUL.... oh wait.Bentley Like Beckham wrote:Whoops, I knew I was forgetting people. Sorry B. and anyone else I've left off.Cheynem wrote:Another notable quizbowl female is my esteemed teammate, B. Spencer. (There are, of course, many others)
Really, people, really? We are actually having this discussion? Could we honestly think of anything less productive to discuss?
Like Susan and Hannah, I personally have never seen any explicit "gender bias" in the questions, I have seen or played, trash or otherwise. What could be mistaken for such a bias is usually just an imbalance in answer selection (e.g. MO's fetish for music less than 20 years old, Eric Mukherjee's unholy love of comics).
Also, this bullshit assertion that "[offensive] content is one thing that can make your trash events less friendly to women" needs to be killed right about now.
EDIT: GRAMMARZ
Bernadette Spencer
University of Minnesota, MCTC
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Your offensive rap music makes my delicate lady ears cry rainbows!tetragrammatology wrote:Also, this bullshit assertion that "[offensive] content is one thing that can make your trash events less friendly to women" needs to be killed right about now.
Hannah Kirsch
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Yeah, I don't see how pornography isn't a legit topic to write on, provided it's a well-written question.
Edit: word stuff
Edit: word stuff
Last edited by Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant on Fri Dec 11, 2009 8:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Farrah Bilimoria
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I think I have fixed this for youtetragrammatology wrote:Eric Mukherjee's divine and totally awesome love of comics).
Janet Berry
[email protected]
she/they
--------------
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Amen; I couldn't be more sick of hearing this crap. Women don't leave quizbowl because of OMG naughty words, not any more than guys do.B wrote:Also, this bullshit assertion that "[offensive] content is one thing that can make your trash events less friendly to women" needs to be killed right about now.
Susan
UChicago alum (AB 2003, PhD 2009)
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
So it turns out that guys, even us quizbowl guys, just don't understand how women think.
Dallin Kelson
Chipola '11, UF '13
Chipola '11, UF '13
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Rap that is (allegedly) offensive to women shouldn't be written on because of the potential to offend. It should be avoided because it is bad music.Not That Kind of Christian!! wrote:Your offensive rap music makes my delicate lady ears cry rainbows!tetragrammatology wrote:Also, this bullshit assertion that "[offensive] content is one thing that can make your trash events less friendly to women" needs to be killed right about now.
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Nah, bad music is important in pop culture. And separately, I don't think quizbowl gets to be the arbiter of what "good" and "bad" pop culture are in a tournament about pop culture any more than we can omit questions about French history because we find France boring.dtaylor4 wrote:Rap that is (allegedly) offensive to women shouldn't be written on because of the potential to offend. It should be avoided because it is bad music.Not That Kind of Christian!! wrote:Your offensive rap music makes my delicate lady ears cry rainbows!
Andrew Watkins
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I agree on two points:
1. Quizbowl shouldn't have to worry about "is this offensive?" in presenting questions.
2. On the other hand, it shouldn't go out of its way to offend either (audience and context, of course, are important--tossups on rap songs with lots of profanity dropped in the question probably aren't the best idea for a high school audience).
1. Quizbowl shouldn't have to worry about "is this offensive?" in presenting questions.
2. On the other hand, it shouldn't go out of its way to offend either (audience and context, of course, are important--tossups on rap songs with lots of profanity dropped in the question probably aren't the best idea for a high school audience).
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota
"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I played Trashregionals with Rom, he could make it as long as movies aren't eradicated, or are watered down to movies from the last 5 years that everyone has seen.Cheynem wrote:Could Rom take it?
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I guarantee more questions about the sexual practices of Harpo Marx would mean more attendance by yours truly. They're simply devine!
You want a signature? How about the fact that I just destroyed your career in 30 words, while sporting amazing headware? That enough of a signature for you?
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Wait, does this mean I shouldn't do this for ACF Winter?Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:I don't think quizbowl gets to be the arbiter of what "good" and "bad" pop culture are in a tournament about pop culture any more than we can omit questions about French history because we find France boring.
Shit.
Trevor Davis
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Agreed. For example, while I don't like rap (and cringe everytime it comes up in a question), this doesn't mean it shouldn't come up in QB (as it is important in some way to pop culture). Pop culture is inherently good or bad depending on everyone's personal tastes. As to further discussion of rap being good or bad, Donald, we can save that for the next time we see one another.Crazy Andy Watkins wrote: Nah, bad music is important in pop culture. And separately, I don't think quizbowl gets to be the arbiter of what "good" and "bad" pop culture are in a tournament about pop culture any more than we can omit questions about French history because we find France boring.
Charles Martin Jr.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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B.S. in Accountancy, August 2011
B.S. in Finance, August 2011
MAS Program, Class of 2012
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Academic Buzzer Team | President
B.S. in Accountancy, August 2011
B.S. in Finance, August 2011
MAS Program, Class of 2012
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I wrote a trash tournament that has yet to clear (more forthcoming mirrors) and I did my best to include girl trash. I tossed up television shows, movies, and music that has a primarily female audience, but male trash players still dominated both the non-quizbowl females I had play the set and the girls that played the sets at my mirror. Attempting to write girly trash is just another way to get people to make embarrassing buzzes.
R. Jeffrey Geringer
Saint Viator '09
Illinois '13, '14
Saint Viator '09
Illinois '13, '14
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Just a thought, but maybe the prevalence of "girl trash" in trash packets can be helped by changing the way that the subdivision is specified. Most packet submission trash subdivisions that I've seen go something like
TV
2/2 90s and 2000s
2/2 Older
Perhaps specifying things like
TV
1/1 + 1 Question Drama
1/1 + 1 Question Comedy
1/1 Other
might be more helpful in ensuring that certain types of trash get tossed up.
Edit: Also there's nothing to say that knowledge of "girl trash" should be embarassing. A lot of this stuff is quite popular and, in my opinion, is no less legitmate knowledge than anything else (well...as legitimate as trash knowledge can be in the grand scheme of things)
TV
2/2 90s and 2000s
2/2 Older
Perhaps specifying things like
TV
1/1 + 1 Question Drama
1/1 + 1 Question Comedy
1/1 Other
might be more helpful in ensuring that certain types of trash get tossed up.
Edit: Also there's nothing to say that knowledge of "girl trash" should be embarassing. A lot of this stuff is quite popular and, in my opinion, is no less legitmate knowledge than anything else (well...as legitimate as trash knowledge can be in the grand scheme of things)
Aaron Dos Remedios
Formerly of the Waterloo School of Abstruse Canadian Inside Jokes (University of Waterloo)
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Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Aside from what I personally feel to be an overabundance of sports questions, I don't feel that TRASH is not "girl-friendly." As a female quizbowler who has been playing since high school and happens to love TRASH, I have to say that I disagree with most, if not all, of your points. I'm generally fine with video game and comic book questions, although there are a decent amount of people who can buzz faster than I can on those categories. I think that I'd rather [insert horrible thing here] than sit through questions on soap operas, Twilight, and chickflicks, and I'm pretty sure that I would find questions on "female sports" to be as annoying as what you're labeling as "male sports." As for your point about trivia nights in bars, the actual difficulty of those tends to be so low that the probability of more girls showing up is obviously going to be higher. I'm also slightly infuriated by your indirect argument that the only type of music questions that female players can get are related to pop music, which I generally find annoying beyond belief.
Helen Yamamoto
UC Berkeley '10
UC Santa Cruz '09
UC Berkeley '10
UC Santa Cruz '09
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I have no argument here and I find myself in the same boat as you.Helen Yamamoto wrote:I'm generally fine with video game and comic book questions, although there are a decent amount of people who can buzz faster than I can on those categories.
And that's fine, but I feel that the point the OP is trying to make is that things like this are underrepresented with respect to their prevalence in pop culture and that the things for which this phenomenon occurs are, in general, topics which are of more interest, in the general population, to females than males.Helen Yamamoto wrote:I think that I'd rather [insert horrible thing here] than sit through questions on soap operas, Twilight, and chickflicks, and I'm pretty sure that I would find questions on "female sports" to be as annoying as what you're labeling as "male sports."
I don't feel that this is the argument, stated or implied, at all. What I am seeing as the OP's argument is that there exist topics in pop culture that are more likely to be consumed by girls than by boys (i.e. girl-friendly trash) and vice versa. With respect to their prevalence in pop culture, girl-friendly trash is underrepresented to a high enough extent in trash tournaments that, when someone interested in girl-friendly trash participates in trash tournaments, it is very noticible. I do not feel that what you perceive as an indirect consequence of this above is the same as what is being said, though I see how you would make that conclusion.Helen Yamamoto wrote:I'm also slightly infuriated by your indirect argument that the only type of music questions that female players can get are related to pop music, which I generally find annoying beyond belief.
Aaron Dos Remedios
Formerly of the Waterloo School of Abstruse Canadian Inside Jokes (University of Waterloo)
Formerly of the Waterloo School of Abstruse Canadian Inside Jokes (University of Waterloo)
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
Yes.FredMorlan wrote:
There's a difference between writing a lot of questions on subjects that are patronizingly associated with women, and having a diverse answer selection that represents a wide area of subjects that are important in pop culture for various reasons. I believe we accomplished the latter.
Honestly, if you want to see those changes, start writing more. TRASH follows trends, and if your cheerleader movies bonus was popular across the board, you will see similar questions at your next tournament. I would love for there to be as many classic film questions as there are contemporary questions, but I am fully aware that no one else my age is glued to Turner Classic Movies.
What bothers me most about this discussion is the impication that you feel the need to be able to answer every question in the packet. I'm not bothered by the number of sports questions in packets, even though there is a snow cone's chance in hell of me even listening to an entire one, but I do know that there is someone else on my team who is listening with the same zeal that I would for a tossup that begins with "This 1939 film..."
I agree with previous posters that I do not see a serious male slant in TRASH. Of course, there is one, because most of it is written by boys and most of the players are boys, but the only way to change it is to encourage more girls to write. Don't "fix" it by adding some consolation girly questions about shit most of us girls don't know anyway.
Maggie Larkin
Booker T. Washington '07
University of Oklahoma '11
Booker T. Washington '07
University of Oklahoma '11
Re: Discussion: Can Trash be more girl friendly?
I don't think me, individually, needs to be able to answer every question in a packet per se. I'm not a good music player, so I recognize I won't be able to answer most of those questions. I do think it's not out of the question for me to have at least heard of 95% of the answer lines, which is what I think most people are getting at.
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota
"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
Formerly U of Minnesota
"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger