Female poets are judged with an entirely different set of criteria than male poets. Men are routinely rewarded for expressing vulnerability and are free to be angry in a way that women are not. Men get extra points solely for having the emotional capacity to write a poem at all. (Go to your local bookstore. It’s hard to find journals that aren’t embossed with butterflies or flowers.) So, women are expected to write poetry, men are rewarded for it. This is not a male poet’s fault – it is, simply, a side effect of our culture’s perception of a male and female’s roles in this here patriarchal American society. Studies have produced neurobiological evidence that women have a better brain capacity than men when it comes to censoring their aggression and anger. I believe female judges often look down on a female poet’s inability to “control” her rage (whether it be through the actual text of the poem or onstage voice control) and men view it as overly hostile. Men and women do NOT get rewarded for the same things in slam. A male poet can co-opt a woman’s experience by having a female proxy (i.e “my sister was raped”) and is considered magnanimous and enlightened, whereas a woman’s personal account of first-hand rape or abuse is often considered cliché.
Rachel McKibbens, from The Male Slam Experience vs. The Female Slam Experience published by Radius Lit, aka one of my all-time favorite essays.
A must read for anyone involved or who wishes to be involved in the competitive slam poetry scene.
