Girls Don't Quiz
Thanks to Prashanth for showing me this article. It brought back a lot of memories!
Back when I used to quiz (this was in school) I was the almost the only girl who did. I've always found it strange and sad that there were never any girls there. The only time I've ever seen an all-girls team in a quiz was in a school General Assembly. Two friends and I were the underdogs there, as we were the junior-most and also the only females on stage. The quizmaster was some patronising 12th std chap. Understandably we were a bit amateurish in 9th and there was one sad round where we passed every question, so much so that the audience would auto-complete the pass for us when it was our turn. But in true Disney movie-ishtyle we won, and in a neck-to-neck finish. Then our principal had to smirk and announce to the other teams, "How does it feel to be beaten by a bunch of girls?!" Well, really! As though that should matter!
The patronising quizmasters are a whole other story. Always addressing questions to the guys. If our team won, then the guys would get the congratulatory handshakes, I would probably get a smile if I were lucky.
An unforgettable, particularly hideous episode, was during the regional finals of the Limca Quiz, I think when I was in 11th. I was in the team with two guys. The quizmaster was Barry O'Brien (@#$*&^$).
Barry: Where do you find the Mount of Venus and the Line of Jupiter?
Me: In the palm of the hand.
Barry: Oh, I said where would you find the Mount of Venus and the Line of Jupiter.
Me (slightly puzzled): Umm, I would find them in the palm of my hand.
Then Barry was like, hmm, what's your name? I told him. He asks the guy next to me his name. Having obtained that vital information, he announces, "Then why don't the two of you hold hands and show the audience?"
Show them what, that we have hands??? The memory of that day still enrages me! I wish I had thought to sue him for discrimination right then. Not only did it serve no purpose except to tickle his infantile sense of humour, it caused me to be teased with my teammate for quite some time after that.
Sadly my quizzing days ended in college, more or less. And nowadays the quiz finals still have fewer female finalists than can be counted with half the fingers of one hand. I don't think it has anything to do with the different ways the male and female brains are constructed or any such nonsense. But I don't have the answer.
Back when I used to quiz (this was in school) I was the almost the only girl who did. I've always found it strange and sad that there were never any girls there. The only time I've ever seen an all-girls team in a quiz was in a school General Assembly. Two friends and I were the underdogs there, as we were the junior-most and also the only females on stage. The quizmaster was some patronising 12th std chap. Understandably we were a bit amateurish in 9th and there was one sad round where we passed every question, so much so that the audience would auto-complete the pass for us when it was our turn. But in true Disney movie-ishtyle we won, and in a neck-to-neck finish. Then our principal had to smirk and announce to the other teams, "How does it feel to be beaten by a bunch of girls?!" Well, really! As though that should matter!
The patronising quizmasters are a whole other story. Always addressing questions to the guys. If our team won, then the guys would get the congratulatory handshakes, I would probably get a smile if I were lucky.
An unforgettable, particularly hideous episode, was during the regional finals of the Limca Quiz, I think when I was in 11th. I was in the team with two guys. The quizmaster was Barry O'Brien (@#$*&^$).
Barry: Where do you find the Mount of Venus and the Line of Jupiter?
Me: In the palm of the hand.
Barry: Oh, I said where would you find the Mount of Venus and the Line of Jupiter.
Me (slightly puzzled): Umm, I would find them in the palm of my hand.
Then Barry was like, hmm, what's your name? I told him. He asks the guy next to me his name. Having obtained that vital information, he announces, "Then why don't the two of you hold hands and show the audience?"
Show them what, that we have hands??? The memory of that day still enrages me! I wish I had thought to sue him for discrimination right then. Not only did it serve no purpose except to tickle his infantile sense of humour, it caused me to be teased with my teammate for quite some time after that.
Sadly my quizzing days ended in college, more or less. And nowadays the quiz finals still have fewer female finalists than can be counted with half the fingers of one hand. I don't think it has anything to do with the different ways the male and female brains are constructed or any such nonsense. But I don't have the answer.
posted by Anjana at 12:49 AM
19 Comments:
Heh heh , that was pretty funny what O Brien did :P . maybe when you're in school - but what was the point ?
Anjana
This is another damn ex of Male ego
Donno when will all men wake up to the fact that women are indeed better :-)
Unfortunately we have been programmed by society to be prejudiced. But its still upto us to unlearn these notions that have crept into us. Btw you could still quiz... how abt a Verizon quiz club? Lets call it QVZ :D
@Sharad yeah, the kids in the audience loved it :P
@Harish, thank you, thank you! Od visit again :)
@Sreejith, let's do that. Do you think enough people would be interested?
hmm.. if this is what you think of Barry, wait till you attend a quiz by Derek! (Brand equity for example)
It would be nice to have more female quizzers around but i guess that doesnt seem to be happening anywhere right now.
the fact is that quizzing by our definition is itself the preserve of a few people. Not everyone gets a kick out of being able to remember vague facts or making even vaguer associations and connections.
btw did u go to landmark quiz this year? i guess with Derek O'Brien at the helm i wouldnt have missed much.
@Akshay and Su, heard enough horror stories about this year's Landmark quiz and Derek. So glad I didn't attend it!
derek was horrid this year. very very rude.. he gave away some landmark voucher to an old lady who looked embarassed about a question involving some model's "assets".. and also to a 61 year old thata cos he did not know what "assets" meant.. He actually called them on stage. He ought to know by now that that kind of "humour" is simply not appreciated in a city like chennai
Chauvinism never dies!!will remain a curse...
@ divya: that kind of humour is not appreciated anywhere.
And that stuff about the guy who said he was 41. PATHETIC. Loser.
Hi!
Visiting blog-world after a long gap..
Do visit my blog@
http://kissay.rediffblogs.com
my quizzing days began in college, and most were business quizzes, and even in inter college culturals there wud be one one womens college in the finals, and invariably they ended up last. i tot this trend existed only in business quizzes cause girls dont follow business and rnt tat interested in it....
Two girls from St Jude's sashayed away with the first prize at the TCS IT quiz . The quiz is funa nd difficult ... condusted by Giri Balasubramaniam ( that name should be familiar .. if you have quizzed a lot )
These girls were super brilliant and..
they won hands down with a whooping 145 !! the second was Vidya mandir at 55 !!
... haha you had schools in the audience ... bowing down to each answer they gave ,.. soo damn well informed .. be it ceo of yahoo ... or identifying bang on the "Charles babbage analytical engine" thru a smudged up diagram ... or Karnik ... or "Lisa" being apple's !!and that they had done some animation for Rambo .. these girls were super brilliant !!!
hahaha they put all egos .. to shame !!
haha
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our education is rather dismal in equipping us to appreciate !!!
.. hehhe small things :
i was taking the 23 c and found myself a comfortable seat .. this little kid of some seven refused to sit next to me ( i am freaking 23 !!) haha .. cos i was a girl !!
ideas are planted deep .. within a child's brain ...
i mean this has prolly nthn to do with the quiz or MCPism .. he was just shy maybe .
But sadly enough .. he is taught to immediately .. cast a person on gender !!
sad state of affairs, that !!
@vatsan, that's sad but true.
@ahiri, great news about the quiz! And yeah, it's strange how in buses, if a guy is forced to sit next to a girl, he invariably flinches and moves millimetre by millimetre further
Hey I'm Soumyajeet from Calcutta. I've been quizzing for a long time and I'm leaving school in a few days. Our quiz club's blogsite is www.sjs-quizobean.blogspot.com
I think you got the wrong measure of Barry.He's a nice guy but plays cheap jokes sometimes and makes some dumb comments sometimes.
I've been quizzing since I was nine, and all through, if I get on stage with a guy as my partner he gets all these "oh poor guy, couldn't find a better partner" looks and if it is a girl with me it's a wonder if the other teams even consider us as people. The quiz master never needs to remember our names or that of our school's, we'd always be "the girls".
Hey, happened to be reading your blog..The sme old, from a frnds blog to skip skip skip skip...land here!
Could not agree more...
Quizzing is guy-land (only competition porn-land, video game-land and car/bike land)...
Dont like it anymore than you do.
..but thats the way the world is..and always will be.
Really and truly feel sucky about it!
(From a very earnest quizzing guy)
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