The Daily Princetonian has a long and extensive article today about why there are currently so few women in eating club leadership. Check it out – it’s especially interesting because the author, Josh Oppenheimer, points out that only eight years ago, it wasn’t this way. In 2001, there were 4 female eating club presidents. Now there are none. Over the past decade, four clubs (Cottage, Quad, Ivy and T.I.) have never had a female president. What happened? And why are so few of the eating club officers female, when women are the majority of student group presidents?
I hope the next article takes on the USG. What are your reactions? Why do you think there are so few women in eating club leadership, and why has this changed so significantly over the past decade?
No surprises about Cottage, Ivy, and TI. Remember that they were the clubs forced by lawsuit to accept women, as recently as the 1990s.
There’s a lot to think about in some of the quotes from the article which suggested that an eating club president has to be “tough” and able to take harassment in a way that presidents of other student organizations don’t. We’re taught that the Street is already a dangerous place for women in a way it isn’t for men (wrt sexual assault, etc.), and that’s before you talk about placing women in positions that the article characterized as vulnerable.
This suggests to me that it’s not a women’s-leadership problem. It’s a Street-culture problem. This all suggests to me that there is something different about how Princeton students conceptualize gender in a sort of otherworldly, nighttime, alcohol-saturated, perhaps less “inhibited” environment.
Yeah, I remember we had a female president over at TFC during calendar year 06, and one in 05. Always seemed like a good mix for us (not that it always is).
I agree about Street culture. I look back on all those Thursdays/Fridays/Saturdays/Sunday mornings/Tuesday/God I partied a lot, and, aside from your Drag Ball or what have you, it seemed mostly to be an exercise in male gratification. Not that women never got what they wanted, but the whole enterprise, consciously or not, was geared towards giving us what we wanted rather than a completely even playing field.
I’m randomly speculating here, but maybe there’s an unconscious part of people who vote for their leadership thinking men throw “better” parties (read: parties that continue the gratification) and won’t get “emotional” and run a tighter ship or whatever. And they vote in men each year because that’s the way it’s been and they feel no great urge to change.
There are complications, of course. Sometimes, as in Terrace right now, people run unopposed. And sometimes, of the two people involved, the individual man might be a better choice. But, most of these elections are purely popularity contests (and why wouldn’t they be?), and in those, people usually stick with their comfort.
I am rambling on a Saturday afternoon…. It would be nice if people shook things up. Maybe the Street would have a better rep if things changed.