Debating, philosophy and gender equality

Yet again philosophy has proven to be a wonderful, useful subject for everyday life. 

We were debating today at Dame Alice whether space travel was worth it. My position was yes and most people agreed with me, which was somewhat disappointing as I prefer to challenge people's assumptions. But I could feel the philosopher in me working like crazy. Every point that was made I was evaluating. I was making connections in interesting places, it was all great. It was a bit slow towards the end as most people agreed so there wasn't much to say and the arguments from the opposition were often weak, so it wasn't too hard. But nevertheless the philosopher side of me was properly working today and I do feel like I'm actually a philosopher now. Compared with last year, my thinking is so much clearer and I am much more critical of the views of others. (Still not critical enough, I think, but I'm working on it!)

In short, yay for philosophy.

But another point about the debate was the difference between the girls and the guys. In the audience, the gender mix was about equal so you would probably expect there to be an equal number of points from both genders, especially brought up as we are in a girls school that paints a very 'girl power!' view of life. Not so. The argument was mainly conducted by the guys, I was the only girl that spoke more than once. And the few points that the girls were making seemed so pathetic. For example:

"Well, if we go into space, what happens if we meet aliens and they like attack us and that's bad." (Not verbatim, but it was as ineloquent as that.)

See also:

"TV shows like Star Trek are making us think that we can do things that we'll never be able to do, so we shouldn't spend money on it."

And:

"We never aim to produce the good side effects [mobile phones] that space travel provides, so we shouldn't do it."

They just make me want to cry! They're almost too bad to counter! We are supposedly seen as man's equal now but we can never be equal if we continue to be quite so pathetic. Yes, pathetic! You cannot say that women should have the same jobs as men but also that they should be allowed to go on pregnancy leave whenever they like. We shouldn't be equal when it suits us. If we ever want to be considered equal to men then we've got to stop acting like such blonde, hair-flicking air heads and stand up for ourselves.

Maybe philosophy has enabled me to see what idiots people are?