A discussion topic inspired by a real call mentioned in a talk by Paul Baranay which was in turn mentioned at the recent Southwest conference.



Two players call a judge about some disagreement. The responding judge is female, and a few seconds later a male judge arrives and stands silently as backup judge. Several times during the call, the players attempt to switch to talking with the male judge, and each time that judge redirects them to the original responding judge.

1. At what point should something be said to the players about this behavior?

2. If/when it is brought up to the players, should it simply be a mention of why this behavior might be offensive? Or should it be a Warning for USC - Minor?

3. Which judge should be the one to bring it up?


What do you think? Anyone is welcome to answer.

I wonder if this has to do with the gender of the judges or the players
simply trying to find a second opinion. I can imagine players asking a
stand by judge to intervene if they can’t get their point accross to the
judge they’re talking to.

Was it ever asked why they were requesting assistance from the other judge?

A good point, but for the purposes of this scenario, you can assume that that wasn't their goal. They were still in the process of explaining the issue, the responding judge hadn't made a ruling yet.

I'm going to say that this is simply about not respecting the first judge, regardless of the players' motivation. If I'm the shadowing player, I'll either ignore the players' attempts to involve me, or state quite clearly “I'm just observing, please work with <<insert judge name>>”.

d:^D

So, this is one of those scenarios where visual cues are going to be very important. Both from the players and the judges involved.

Did the male judge come up and shadow to closely? This could indicate lack of confidence in the female judges ruling to the players. Or be a sign that the male judge somehow has more knowledge/authority.

This kind of stuff is actually very common regardless of what the gender composition of the judges are.

Is the female Judge getting frustrated? Does she seem comfortable addressing the issue or does she seem to want support?
How did the male judge first indicate the players should talk to the female judge instead.

A silent nod towards the female Judge, could be interpreted as you want her to answer it so you can see how she does”. That nod could actually imply you are the more authoritative Judge!

All these things change how I would act and answer.

My default would probably be something like a friendly “don’t look at me, she’s the judge” and then take a step back so I am less accessible to the players. But it could change based on various factors. I know a few judges that that would have already stepped in with a “I need you to talk to me” and I don’t gotta do nothin’. (Those are my favorite)


If it gets so bad you are considering USC-Minor, I think you (collectively) need to really evaluate how you interacted with this call.

Every call has a judge who is “owning” it. Usually only the owner of the call should have right to pass the ownership to someone else (unless something very nonstandard happens). It is a general best practice, when shadowing a call, to divert any attempt by players to change the owner to the shadowing judge. I usually use some explanation like “I am just watching, this is your judge”.

In case that players try that several times during the call, I will always just redirect them to the owner. I do not want to disrupt the call by going into any long explanations. However, when the call is over, I would probably discuss the matter with the players. If not during the match, definitely after it finishes.

I believe it should not hurt to present the player with some philosophy on the way how judge teams and shadowing work. I would try to explain to them how disrespectful it may look, even if they did not mean it intentionally that way. From that conversation, I would also try to learn what was the original motivation for such behavior - I cannot assume anything just from the fact that the first judge was of a different gender than me…

A completely different story is the case when the players openly present that the reason why they are turning to me is a gender issue. That basically immediately pauses the original call and starts a USC investigation/discussion with the players (together with the HJ).

Edited Milan Majerčík (Jan. 9, 2018 04:54:42 AM)

There are many, many possible explanations for the players to look at the shadowing judge instead of at the judge who first took the call. Just to name some:

*The second judge speals my language, the first may or may not
*The second judge is a judge I know and I trust, the first judge I've never seen before
*The second judge has a higher level

And to second Bryan: if this escaletes into USC-Minor, then something went very wrong, as this sounds like something the judges could and should have prevented from escalating. If the judges notice there is a problem in the call, let's first find out what that problem is, address it and solve it, and then continue with the original call.

As others have said, the specific situation above is a little tricky since the presence of a second judge is often distracting regardless of the underlying reason. Regardless, there are plenty of situations which occur which may indicate players are being unconsciously less respectful towards female judges, and I think it is worth discussing that in general. I am going to assume here that we are talking only about situations where a player is not being overtly rude or offensive, because obviously that is handled under USC.

If you believe that a female judge is not being adequately respected by a player, regardless of the motivation, then it needs to be addressed - but probably not with a USC Minor. Players have to do something actively bad to wind up with a USC Minor!

The most effective approach is usually to find a quiet moment to have a chat about it after the match. Ideally, it can be beneficial for the judge who feels they are not being respected to have this conversation, but it is also very possible that they don't feel comfortable doing so. Asking people to take you more seriously can be a rather awkward thing to do. If that is the case, it is just as helpful for another judge who observed the interaction or who has discussed it in detail to have that conversation.

Going into a conversation like this, bear in mind that your aim is to improve their behaviour, not to tell them off. Most of the time, you are going to be speaking to someone who has no idea that they have been acting differently towards a female judge. That means it is important for you, as well as the player, to be in a calm state of mind going into the conversation.

An effective approach for the discussion is to begin by restating the facts of the interaction and agreeing on reality: ‘When Judge A came to give you a ruling earlier you were respectful, but when I came to your table you spoke over me and questioned me before I had even delivered my ruling’. Unless you have specific evidence that the behaviour is connected to sexism - like calling the judge ‘sweetie’ (happened to me…) - you don't want to mention sexism, as that is likely to put them on the defensive and possibly be inaccurate. The focus here is on reiterating the need to be respectful of others, both judges and players, and making them aware of how what they did earlier was not respectful. Explain what would have been a better way to act in the situation. Finally, make sure to ask for feedback on the way you/the judge handled the call.

It can feel frustrating to not be able to charge in their and get angry about something that you perceive as an incident of sexism. Remember that policing what goes on inside someone's head is not our business as judges, but making a friendly, respectful tournament environment is.

-

As a final note, I'm a little disappointed by the number of experienced male judges derailed this thread about sexism to say ‘it’s not really about sexism, let's make this about all judges'. Women make up an even smaller minority of the judge community than they do the player base, and surely it should not come as a surprise that we experience our share of sexism while working at events. Most of it is not going to be overt sexism - it is an unconscious difference in the way that players react to us. That gender dynamic is something that we would all benefit from discussing.

My personal opinion, even I'm no longer currently judging is:

* The shadow judge should clearly state, that the ruling is completly made bei the judge in charge at the table. Not like “Ask her” but more like “She is your judge, talk to her, I'm just observing and won't interfere”.

Depending how much the players still try to talk to the other judge, the shadow judge should talk to the players after the ruling or after the match about the situation to find out why the did this and to educate them that this was unpolite.

Depending on how that conversation goes it can evole into anything from just a talk to the player up to a formal infraction.

Thanks Hannah for your invaluable insights.

Honestly, I am not sure whether the thread has been derailed. Actually the topic IS about all judges. The original post did not mention anything about sexism. It just said that the first judge was female and the shadowing one was male. My opinion is that, unless I have a reason to understand it otherwise, the players just did that thing which I have already experienced so many times either as the first judge or in the role of the shadowing one.

I merely presented my way how I usually handle such attempts from players to change the ownership of a judge call. I believe that it is unfair to automatically assume that the players are acting that way because of genders of the involved judges.

I won't go into it further but just wanna point out the title of the thread
Milan :).

Hannah :
I think your points were great. Truly! I like the way you would handle it
and I'll second that I also reacted to the number of judges actively making
it sound like not sexism. To me, it seems like one of the most common forms
of implicit difference non-male judges I know have encountered (more
frequent queues that challenge their competence).

Like you say, we can't know whether that was their thinking, nor should we
try and go there.

I'd like to add an anecdote that springs to mind for me was when we did a
presentation at school. Our group was presenting and one of my female
classmates missed mentioning something so I just mentioned it real quick so
she could add it. Afterwards, our teacher pointed out how it looked when
me, as only man in the group, pointed out that she missed it. It undermined
her authority, even though I really didn't mean to. But making it about: if
you do A, the effect is B regardless of your intent is in my mind a good
recipe to help people see the issue (while, as you say, avoid saying sexism
and creating first an atmosphere of safety).

Den 9 jan. 2018 13:31 skrev “Milan Majerčík” <

Heh, thanks Eskil :-D

Actually, that is why I have already mentioned that I would have a chat with those players about respect and perceived results of their action regardless of their intentions. And it has nothing to do with gender / sexual orientation / Judge level / experience or whatever criteria you pick.

It is about a simple human politeness.

Originally posted by Milan Majerčík:

And it has nothing to do with gender / sexual orientation / Judge level / experience or whatever criteria you pick.

That's a really naive statement, and I think Hannah picks up on an extremely valuable point.

The perception of female judges in the program tends to lean towards the usual office sexism of “men do it better”. I myself have experienced players asking for “a male judge” to make a ruling, as they feel that a woman can't make a correct ruling.
Other, so-called microaggressions, manifest themselves as a tendency to snap-appeal rulings from female judges (even before a complete ruling has been made) and by using pet names in conversation; “Thanks, darling”.

It's easy to dismiss it as “people can be not nice sometimes” or “everyone gets it”, but that's erasing a legitimate issue within Magic.

There are a couple things that are going on here: There is *what* the
player did and *why* the player did what he did.

In this case, they were not treating the female judge with the proper
respect and trying to interact with the male judge instead. They didn't
exhibit behavior that was explicitly sexist. Because this type of behavior
is not okay, regardless of the gender of the judges, we should act to
protect all judges in this situation.
However, the reason why the player was acting this way does matter. It
likely doesn't change how this ruling is handled, but it should impact how
we think about and deal with players who treat female judges improperly.
We cannot just dismiss the gender aspect and say “we need players to treat
all judges properly”. Yes, we want all judges treated properly, but female
judges have to deal with issues that male judges do not have to. We should
be cognizant of this when we come across behavior like this.