Elephant on the Ballot

CORRECTION APPENDED

When Jeffrey Kwong ’09 offered the microphone to Ellen C. Quigley ’07 at last week’s Undergraduate Council (UC) presidential debate, he did so in order that a woman might make a single substantive comment during the entire debate.

Save the female president of the Campus Debate Society who welcomed the audience to the event, every participant in the evening was a man: the moderator, every candidate, and every student group representative chosen to question the campus politicians. Although each man was tactful and respectful—and the debate itself was by no means an overt display of sexism—one can’t help but notice that the lack of women taking part in the UC presidential election this year is a serious elephant in the room.

And on the ballot. One woman, Morgan C. Wimberley ’08, actually does appear on the ballot, but she (and her running mate) have acknowledged that they don’t actually want to win this election, and the candidate herself has yet to make an appearance at any public debate. Has this woman been bullied out of running for the UC? More likely, Wimberley has just gotten her own joke and not-so-subtly removed herself from all of the "politics" of this election.

In this same vein, I am willing to wager that the reason many women choose not to run for the UC is not because they are blatantly discouraged from doing so by their male counterparts, but because they would just rather not involve themselves in the "sausage-fest of the year." This begs the question: Why don’t more women run for the UC? Overt sexism is on the decline in the Harvard community. Rarely will you encounter someone on campus who is outspoken and secure in his or her discrimination against women. However, certain aspects of Harvard’s culture are simply tinged against the expression of women’s strengths and power.

Last year, I was the only woman in a statistics group for a final project. Each of the men in my group would self-identify as progressive liberals and none of them would consider themselves sexist. However, when it came time to split up the work for the project, I was chosen to draw the poster. "Well, one of us has to do it, and since you’re the girl, why not you?" was the justification. That was more than enough for my taste, but later that week, during the presentation itself, my professor patted me on the shoulder and called me the "gender balance" of my project. I was stunned. After almost a year at Harvard—where sometimes, I felt slightly out of place because of my sex—I had the bitter taste of covert discrimination lingering in my mouth as I left Cambridge for the summer.

How does my experience last spring relate to this year’s male-dominated UC ballot? After all, this election may simply be an anomaly, considering that last year, two of the three UC vice presidential candidates were women. However, the connection that I see between the two occurrences is in how campus figures have reacted to the lack of women running for the UC. The answer to the "problem" of female representation is not a problem that needs to be retroactively addressed by male members of the UC, as some candidates have suggested. This issue does not call for a position paper, legislation, or someone else’s presidential platform. It calls for people—not just men—on campus to acknowledge that sexism is not a vanished menace, but a real and subtle presence, and it demands women to speak up against displays of discrimination (as I did not, last year). Sexism is a lingering presence at Harvard, and although women should not be coddled, it is the responsibility of the entire Harvard community to make sure we are each doing our individual part to erode it. At the same time, women must realize their right (and responsibility) to hold offices of student government, and not allow the subtle forms of discouragement on campus to interfere with their personal choices.

Harvard, I’ll settle for you not addressing the issue of all-male social spaces that you continue again and again to ignore. I’ll settle for having to yell in history section in order to be heard over the smothering male cacophony that is unwilling to pause and hear my voice. I’ll settle for a male UC president, vice president, and even a male president of the University.

But please—for the love of God—don’t pat me. Don’t condescend to me so blatantly, and then turn around and say that sexism is a thing of the past. Not doing that is one way—and the only way—to kill this elephant on the ballot…and in the room.

Emma M. Lind ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, is a social studies concentrator in Winthrop House.

CORRECTION:

The Dec. 6 comment "Elephant on the Ballot" stated that the Campus Debate Society organized the Undergraduate Council presidential debate. In fact, the Campus Political Society organized the event, and the female speaker, Daren F. Stanaway ’07, was not the organization’s president, but the debate organizer. The comment also stated that Brian S. Gillis ’08-’09 and Morgan C. Wimberley ’08 have not said that they do not wish to win the election. In fact, they acknowledged that victory is not their first priority. The fact was originally misreported in a Dec. 1 Crimson news article. The Crimson regrets the errors.