Few women high up in USG

Once again, the officers of the Class of 2015 are well-balanced in terms of gender; the vice president, treasurer and secretary are all female, while the president and social chair are both male.

But gender stereotypes, subtle dissuasion and other factors may still be holding women back from seeking the most visible and powerful positions, according to those involved with the process. Of the nine freshmen who chose to run for president, only one was female; on the other hand, all five candidates for secretary were female.

“I did not expect that I was the only one, quote-unquote, ambitious enough to run for president,” said Sharon Gao ’15, the only girl who ran for freshman class president. “I did notice that a lot of girls ran for secretary and treasurer and vice president and I was wondering why they didn’t feel that they could win the presidential role ... It kind of threw me off a bit.”

Trends like this were part of the reason that President Shirley Tilghman created the Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership in December 2009, charging the group to determine whether or not undergraduate women were pursuing leadership roles at the same rate as men, and, if not, to identify possible reasons for the discrepancy.

The committee’s report found that, while women are just as involved as men in campus organizations, they consistently undersell themselves and are less likely to run for visible posts such as a class presidency. Additionally, the group found that women sometimes need more encouragement than men to put themselves out there and campaign for a high-profile position.

“In my experience, I had been encouraged to run by other people, and that was really influential,” USG vice president and Steering Committee member Catherine Ettman ’13 said. “It’s not that it would be an inappropriate role for me to apply for, it’s just that it didn’t occur to me until people starting saying, ‘Hey, you’d make a really good vice president.’ ” Ettman previously served as a Class of 2013 senator.

To provide this encouragement to underclass women, the Steering Committee recommended instituting more mentorship programs to facilitate interactions between freshmen and upperclassmen. Since the recommendation, Mathey College has begun a mentorship program geared specifically toward women. Working collaboratively with the Women’s Center and Mathey, Ettman teamed with Caroline Kitchener ’14 to pilot a similar organization called the Princeton Women’s Mentorship Program.

Additionally, Ettman and Dean of Whitman College and chair of the Steering Committee’s first-year experience subcommittee Rebecca Graves-Bayazitoglu are co-chairing an implementation group charged with designing leadership training programs geared toward undergraduate women.

But since the freshman election begins just weeks into the semester, freshman women have little time to take advantage of these resources before being faced with the decision of whether or not to run.

“Mentoring is especially important, but for the freshman class offices, presumably the women have not been encouraged and mentored by anybody,” professor of public affairs and Steering Committee Chair Nannerl Keohane said. “Knowing that this seems to be true every year, it might be that students and administrators should ask: ‘How do we construct this election in a somewhat different way so that women may be more likely to see this election as relevant for them?’ ”

Ettman agreed, noting that three weeks into the school year might not be enough time for freshman women to get the encouragement they need to decide to run. Nevertheless, for the four positions other than president, female candidates outnumbered male candidates 13 to 6. The issue for women may not be so much the prospect of campaigning itself, but rather a hesitance to assume the position with the most visibility and responsibility.

Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students and chair of the Steering Committee’s Subcommittee on Social and Residential Life Thomas Dunne said that he found from focus group conversations and interviews that women were less concerned with obtaining a specific title than with contributing as best they could to help a group achieve its goals.

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“Becoming secretary or social chair still provides students with an opportunity to foster class unity,” Dunne said in an email, noting that he was speaking for himself and not the Steering Committee. “I believe that any class officer will tell you that they work collaboratively on projects. That said, there are some specific opportunities and benefits, both on campus and off, that reside in being president.”

It is unlikely that the Princeton environment in particular is at fault for the lack of women seeking the most visible positions on campus. Ettman and Gao both noted that sometimes people — and women in particular, Ettman said — are more likely to run for positions they feel they have a higher likelihood of winning. Additionally, Ettman, Gao and Dunne all suggested that societal norms to which women have been exposed long before they arrive at Princeton could dissuade them from pursuing certain roles.

“I do personally believe that gender stereotypes are impacting the disparity in elected positions women seek and hold,” Dunne said.

Graves-Bayazitoglu added that just because the existence of these stereotypes is not unique to Princeton does not mean that the University community should not actively seek to combat them.

“Stereotypes are powerful only when they go unrecognized and are accepted as truth,” Graves-Bayazitoglu said in an email. “Identifying them is crucial to breaking them down and smoothing the path for students to pursue their interests and imagine themselves taking on a leadership role.”