Affirmative Action was put in place last year for the University of Sydney Union (USU) Board of student directors. The premise is that the USU Board must always comprise of at least 50% female-identifying students. Questions must be asked why this year, despite AA, only three women nominated for Board and all were appointed without going to election because there were too few candidates. It is a disappointing result for democracy. But moreover, it is a disappointing result for the women on this campus.
Even advocates of AA should be dismayed at the result of this year’s election for women. The women who were appointed may do a brilliant job. Many of the men who go through election and win, may also turn out to be terrible board directors. But the fact of the matter is, none of the appointed women will have any mandate behind them. No one has given them a vote of confidence. The evil voices inside the head of Right Wingers are probably giggling away: “I told you so. AA results in tokenistic positions on Board. Women who are only there because they are women”.
Yet, students like myself, can’t help but feel women have been let down. AA represented an opportunity for women on this campus to feel empowered to get up for election, get on board – because they get the votes, not because they filled the quota. AA was supposed to help redress systemic discrimination.
Women were let down because there was no follow through. No constitutional change, no election policy - not even appointing women on board will redress the fundamental issue. AA is merely a bandaid solution for a much larger problem. By all means, have AA to kick start change – but if you don’t support women with other avenues, then AA simply falls flat. Also if you are serious about opening the doors to all women - not just women aligned to political parties - then the solution needs to be much more comprehensive than simply an AA quota.
Women on this campus should be getting together to discuss how future election campaigns can mentor brilliant candidates. If you truly want to redress the structural causes of discrimination against women, you need a cultural change – not merely a constitutional change.
What are the reasons for why so few women nominated themselves for board election? It surely can’t be problems combining work and family life, as most undergraduates are not impeded by child-caring responsibilities! Is it cultural? Does the board appear to be male-dominated? Are women not interested in leading one of the largest student organisations in the country? Does USU present itself as a boys club? Are women too intimidated to enter elections against party hacks? Does the general student feel empowered and resourced enough to stand for election and make their mark on the university student scene? I suspect the problem runs far deeper than just women students, but any student that doesn’t mix with the right crowd, study the right degrees or belong to a party machine.
Here’s a challenge for next year… can we see 5 truly independent women come forward and stand for election?
My suggestions:
1. Hold a forum to gauge what women’s ideas and conceptions of elections involve. Open it to anyone who would like to stand for election but has never thought they could enter or even win one. From there, find out what needs to happen to support candidates. It will be important to advertise what it actually means to be a board director: what exactly are people vying for?
2. Have every current board member mentor a female election candidate for one month before an election. Impose a new AA policy - only half of those women mentored should be aligned to political parties.
Comments
What worries me more is the fact that candidates are being appointed, rather than voted-in! Who says a female candidate is always - under all circumstances - the best to serve female interests anyway (in cases such as this...)!? What I mean is, I'd rather have a male from the Greens, than a conservative Liberal anti-feminist female representing me on union board!
emma
female postgrad
arts
Posted by: emma | May 15, 2007 04:47 PM
To my good friend Ghassan,
Please stop telling women how to be women.
With all due respect,
Lauren
Posted by: Lauren | May 17, 2007 01:00 PM
This year the Board needed to elect 6 directors.
Originally nine people put in nomination forms – four women and five men.
Of those nine nomination forms one was deemed to be incomplete thereby rendering that person ineligible to run.
The ruled out person was a woman.
Therefore we were left with 8 candidates – three women and the original five men.
I fail to see how a differentiation of one constitutes a failing of the female population on campus to actively engage in University politics and governance.
Further, you suggest mentoring programs that are already in place. The Board has instituted women’s mentoring programs, run by women directors and attended by prominent women.
The members voted overwhelmingly in favour of AA in order to get more women on the Board. I think four women and five men submitting a nomination form is a pretty good balance. I would like to see a similar balance in other areas of our community.
If your real concern is the broader notion of affirmative action then perhaps that should be the focus of your blog.
I wish all of the new directors the very best of luck.
Posted by: Jo | May 17, 2007 01:20 PM
Couldn't agree with you more, Jo.
Posted by: Sally J | May 18, 2007 11:44 AM
I'm on the record as having voiced my reservations about the introduction of ‘affirmative action’ (AA) in both the Union and the Sydney University Law Society (SULS). I really, really, hope that I am not one of the 'Right Wingers' with the 'evil voices inside [my] head' referred to in Ghassan’s post above.
I would take the most profound offence at being characterised in such a way. Putting aside the unhelpfully simple moniker of ‘Right Winger’ (a label that, even if it were useful, I would reject wholeheartedly), I think it is wholly unfair and divisive for one person to say that another person’s conscience is an ‘evil voice’. What makes the sincere feelings of conscientious objectors to AA evil? Is it merely because those feelings are out-of-step with the agenda of the self-proclaimed ‘progressives’?
And the little voice in my head is not laughing at all. The little voice in my head is lamenting the fact that the AA policies in this instance have resulted in the scenarios that many predicted: a select group of people on the Union Board who are there not (necessarily) because they have the support of the student body but because there was a quota to fill and they fit the bill.
The little voice inside my head also wonders how the Union can ever possibly hope to convince students that it is a truly representative organisation over which student have a tangible sense of ownership when a significant chunk of its Board has been appointed, and appointed not because of any particular merit or distinguished service, but because those directors happened to be born women instead of men.
The little voice inside my head is also sad that, despite the earnest protestations from AA’s supporters, AA has not really aided women, but failed them. AA has failed women in this instance by yet again focusing the debate not on the relative merits or achievements of the candidates as individuals but on their biological sex. Throughout my time at the University of Sydney I have encountered wonderfully successful and inspiring women (members of the winning Jessup Moot team to name but two examples) and such women have impressed me because of the objective quality of their achievements. AA policies, as they have been introduced in the Union and in SULS, do a disservice to women such as these by rendering their laudable achievements less important than biological happenstance.
Finally I also take issue the general thrust of Ghassan’s post above, I take issue with the line of argument that seeks to place blame at someone’s feet for the failure of AA to provide the outcomes its supporters expected. It does not necessarily follow that if fewer women nominate for Union Board then there must be cultural problem, or a systemic problem or a problem in any other area. Sometimes, things just happen.
Posted by: Sikeli | May 18, 2007 02:32 PM