In last year’s Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) elections, we saw something unprecedented: an equal gender balance in candidates and an electoral result that led four women to be elected out of five officers, something that had never happened before. Much of this outcome was attributed to a sustained campaign to promote “Women in Leadership”, created and developed by Katie Byrne, the 2014/15 Education Officer and the only woman sabbat that year.
What had seemed to herald a greater engagement of women in student politics instead appears to have been an anomaly.
But it didn’t last. Of the candidates for the 2016/17 sabbatical roles, only four out of 17 are women. No woman is running for President or for Education Officer. What had seemed to herald a greater engagement of women in student politics instead appears to have been an anomaly, an outlying case, a situation where that year just saw an unexpected number of motivated, influential women than usual. Lynn Ruane, the current TCDSU President, even acknowledged that it may just have been “a good year for women”.
The “Women in Leadership” campaign was intended to inform women who may be more reluctant to go for leadership roles that they have the ability and the experience just as much as their male counterparts. Women are often more reluctant to put themselves forward, often due to implicit barriers such as their perceptions of their own competence, capability, and capacity. A 2009 report by Trinity graduate and senator, Ivana Bacik, suggested there are five barriers for women entering leadership roles, namely “childcare, cash, confidence, culture, and candidate selection procedures”. While not all are applicable to the university political sphere, some may certainly contribute to the lack of women present in these positions.
However, too often reasons are paraded that refer to gender research more generally, failing to take into account the specific environment within which this lack of female engagement occurs. Under-representation is not a one-size-fits-all state of affairs, but instead stems from factors that specifically and broadly impose a standard upon a group. While it seemed last year that tackling this issue was as simple as drawing attention to it and explicitly encouraging women to run, the failure to see the same returns this year shows that it’s not as easy as that.
Alongside the four female sabbats, the Phil, the Hist, DUBES, and Trinity VDP are all lead by women this year, as are many smaller societies.
Trinity is not short of influential, ambitious women. Alongside the four female sabbats, the Phil, the Hist, DUBES, and Trinity VDP are all lead by women this year, as are many smaller societies. Ruane emphasises that she has definitely seen women take a more active role in many of the most influential college movements, such as repeal the eighth, divestment, and “Students Against Fees”. Union forum, one of the union’s decision-making bodies, has a large proportion of women, and many college societies have equal gender breakdowns. The University Times has a masthead composed of seven women and six men. But if all of these women are motivated to take active, prominent positions in College life, then why is the ball dropped in the transition from head of societies, heads of newspapers, active members of campaigns, to being head of the union? Of the many women in College with important roles, why do only four of them want to take it a step further to leading the union?
It appears that often the makeup of the previous year’s union determines the candidates who run for election the subsequent year. Molly Kenny, the current Education Officer, acknowledges that this likely plays a huge role: “A lot of the people running [last year] were heavily involved in the SU. Katie was a class rep, Lynn was on the exec, Conor was on the exec.” Many of this year’s candidates have also been heavily involved. This makes sense, as those with a stake in the union are more likely to want to lead it, as they better understand the limitations and challenges of the role, as well as the piecemeal procedures of the union. And if more men than women are involved in a given year, then naturally the gender breakdown may be skewed. Women tend to run when they perceive that they have the capability and the experience to do so, and many of the women in top College positions were active members of their respective societies and organisations prior to contesting leadership roles. In the Phil, the three previous presidents sat on the Council for several years prior to taking up the presidential mantle. The authors of this piece were heavily involved in The University Times for several years before becoming senior editors. Lara Connaughton, the auditor of DUBES, and Julia McCarthy, the auditor of the Hist, had both been very active in their respective societies before they ran. And all of last year’s female officers of the union were involved in the union prior to election, with Kenny acknowledging that it was the encouragement from her peers to take up earlier positions of responsibility that later drove her to run for education.
But does this same tendency apply to men? Do men wait to be sure they have sufficient experience before contesting a position? In a report by the Taubman Center for Public Policy in Brown University, using matched samples of men and women, men were two thirds more likely to consider themselves “qualified” for a role, whereas women were twice as likely to assess themselves as “not at all qualified”. These are individuals with the same level of experience, but very different thresholds of what constitutes qualification for a role.
The same effects likely extend to women in leadership roles in university. But this is hardly Trinity’s fault, and instead is representative of a deeper and more pervasive perception held by both women themselves and by society more generally. Julia McCarthy believes that lack of female engagement stems from childhood, when girls are “taught not to put yourself out there as much”. This is undoubtedly true – much research has focused upon socialisation of gender roles, as well as both implicit and explicit expectations present in society that women will be quieter, less confrontational, and warmer. McCarthy describes her own experience as almost walking a tightrope between being assertive and maintaining relationships with other individuals in College who may be more likely to perceive her in a different way to how they would perceive a male auditor.
But as one of the more liberal universities, McCarthy thinks that Trinity is better than most.
However, Ludivine Rebet, the president of the Phil, does believe that many of the implicit barriers for women can come for the culture of the organisation itself. Citing the Phil’s efforts towards promoting gender equality, she stated that much of their success in recent years came from sustained efforts towards encouraging female participation and engagement. In particular, the members of the Phil recognise that “women need to be pushed more by their peers”. McCarthy agrees, saying that “we have a lot of structures in place now [to combat gender inequality]”. Gender quotas for speaking, a women’s network where you can chat to more experienced female debaters, and the Histerhood, which involves all-female events, allow women to engage more with each other and provide positive role models for women looking to move into greater responsibility in the society.
Ruane acknowledges that failing to push women may have contributed to this year’s gender imbalance.
This pushes women to contest roles, and Ruane acknowledges that failing to push women may have contributed to this year’s gender imbalance. Though she had thought that simply seeing her in a role might have inspired women to run for election, she admits that “maybe [she] didn’t get out there enough in the past six months and encourage women to run for [her] role”. The “Women in Leadership” campaign was intended to boost participation and give that extra push so lacking for women. In 2014/15 the campaign was sustained, focusing on workshops throughout the year, with two “Women in Leadership” workshops and four other workshops. However, the same emphasis on specialised workshops was not present this year, although Conor Clancy, Welfare Officer and one of the individuals involved in promoting “Women in Leadership”, emphasised that “it would be wrong to say that [the campaign] did not happen.” Two workshops were organised in conjunction with USI and were held in January, although Kenny believes that these may fall too late in the year to make a difference.
If the elections were later, Kenny also believes that more candidates in general would run, and that workshops held before Christmas would give women more time to assess their desire for a position and organise the necessary support to run. After all, the elections are a uniquely stressful time: candidates must run on a platform visible to the entire College for a stressful two-week period, putting themselves out there for potential judgement and ridicule. It is here that the SU diverges from other large organisations in College, such as the Phil and the Hist, where elections are internal and you don’t have to throw yourself into the spotlight quite as much.
Considering this, Rebet admits that she may have found it harder to put herself forward in a more public campaign. After all, a campaign for a woman is uniquely different to that of a campaign from a man – the pressures are different, the expectations are different, and the denigration is different. Kenny recalls questions she received in the lead up to elections about who she had slept with, something “which comes up more for women than it comes up for men”. And Rebet agrees, stating: “A lot of girls feel like they’re not pretty enough to be respected or elected, or girls who are traditionally hot will feel like they need to cover up more so that they don’t intimidate the female voters”. She acknowledges that she “heard of people doing that in the last SU election”.
It’s true that there is a certain pressure to wear makeup, but not too much, and to dress nicely, but not too nicely, and to look a certain way, or be a certain weight, or to meet certain criteria of appearance that men are not pressured to meet to the same extent. That’s not to say that men don’t face appearance pressures, but that these pressures are infinitely more specific and demanding for women. We see this in the way that female politicians are judged and the way that female actors and media figures are considered, debated over, and dissected in terms of minute elements, such as facial features, bodily aspects, or the way their outfit makes them look. Putting yourself forward for the union in spite of all of this requires significant determination. Who can blame women if they don’t want to go through it all?
Encouraging women to run for leadership roles should not be a once-off effort, as it is not an easily solved problem. McCarthy agrees with this: “This is a massive societal issue which has been going on for hundreds of years. A year-long course is not going to fix it. There’s got to be constant work on it.” Though it becomes tiring to constantly have to worry about encouraging women, it’s not something we can just allow to fall away. True, lasting gender balance will be difficult to achieve, but it’s something worth working towards. One can only hope the union will focus more strongly upon it next year and in the years to come.
