So I just found out that the NJCL (young classicists; basically the kids I'll teach in a couple of years) sponsors separate declamation contests for boys and girls????

The boys recite a bit from Ovid's AA (about grooming children for sex) and the girls? ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

The major organization for secondary Classics is telling high-school boys to memorize and recite a passage from the Ars Amatoria (a text I wouldn't teach to undergrads) about how "If you take them in first and still growing years, a real girl will come before your eyes."

But hey! Ovid is canon, at least: the AA requires a ton of context but Ovid's legitimately a titan of Latin literature. I can't imagine how it would feel to run a classroom where boys were given Ovid or Livy and girls got (shit you not) "Alicia in Terra Mirabili."

This smirking bullshit isn't how Classics is taught @CUBoulder or anywhere else I've worked/studied. How many students see this crap and leave forever? How many majors do we lose because @NationalJCL can't be bothered to find Classical texts with women who aren't being groomed?

I promise, you can let young men and women read poetry in the same competition - it'll be FINE. And if it's so important to @NationalJCL that there be separate options for men and women speakers, SULPICIA! BOUDICCA! HEROIDES! Do, like, a *scintilla* of research.

And for boys: there are plenty of passages in Latin literature (hell, in Ovid) (double hell, in the Ars Amatoria) that don't glamorize child sex or talk about Roman men as leering sex pests *while endorsing said sex pesting.*

I want to teach students who were exposed to Latin (sometimes Greek!) and ancient Mediterranean culture, WITHOUT running a misogyny gauntlet in order to make it to my classroom. Work with me on this?

(source: https://www.njcl.org/NJCL-Convention/Convention-Contests/Creative-Arts-Contests)

Fin. Tip your food service professional.