Gender diversity and inclusion in newly elected SMUSA team
Written by: Neema Mazonge
@neemamazonge
Photo by: @SMUSA
What do inclusion and diversity mean to you? “Diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having that voice be heard” (Liz Fosslien). With the recently concluded SMUSA elections, we take a look at the team that has been elected by the students to serve in the next year and we also look at the team that will be handing over come April. The current SMUSA team is a diverse team comprised of both men and women from different ethnicities. It is the first team at Saint Mary’s University to have a female president (Mary Navas) in 17 years and the first-ever female board chair (Cyrstal Witter) and president team in SMU.
We women have always been a minority in many positions of student government and I believe that this is not because students are refusing to elect women into office. Instead, very few women are running for office, to begin with. Very few women run for office because most are intimidated by the male-dominated industry, they also do not receive encouragement from peers and the fear of failure haunts them. For a long time, men have predominantly been serving these leadership roles within student government, which means that men have been making the majority of decisions that affect women’s experiences at SMU and because of this, many issues end up going unnoticed or dealt with because men and women have different experiences that even though explained to, they would not fully understand.
It is important to have more female leaders on student government because they provide a unique insight on many of the challenges faced by women on campus such as threats to women’s safety, health and lack of opportunity. While we women are prevalent in many parts of the student government, there is a clear distinction between gender in key leadership roles, most executive positions are always filled by men while the women are left to settle for lower rankings. The recently concluded elections at SMU highlighted the fact that most of the candidates were men. Only three women stood for positions and these include Pearl Buyanzi and Vimbayi Handara who ran for The Board of Directors and Sophia Okoroafor who ran for President. Out of these three women, only one woman (Pearl Buyanzi) was elected into the incoming student government.
The small number of women running for leadership positions on the student government is quite discouraging. There are implications that come with representation such as the way that students view the services offered. Women do not feel empowered and often rethink their abilities when they do not see people like them in these roles. Women also feel misrepresented and feel like they have no voice to help them raise their concerns such as how is a leadership team that comprises of mostly men supposed to understand certain needs of women such as the need free sanitary towel on campus, or the need for safe spaces for women to breastfeed.
I would like to encourage more female students to stand up and run for various positions being offered on campus and to take up space and cement themselves within SMU’s leadership teams. Incoming women or women who plan on running for student leadership positions should never deprive themselves of the opportunities that SMU has to offer and always believe in yourself. I myself as a woman cannot claim to have done much on campus to encourage more women to run for office, however, little things such as following the elections and writing this article have opened my mind to the need of women in the student government. The peer support that I offer to some of my female friends who decide to break boundaries and run for executive positions such as SMUSA president is something that I will continually be proud of.
Gender disparity in student government is not unique to SMU, it is simply a symptom of a greater societal trend. You can find a lot of women in staff and cabinet positions but rarely in the executive positions in many companies and even the government. In SMU, it is important to have at least half of the student government leaders and officials be female to effectively represent the student body’s needs. More women should be encouraged to rethink their abilities and their perceptions of themselves, to not be afraid to take risks and not be terrified of failure. Just as SMU facilitates gatherings to talk about the importance of leadership, I believe that the same should be done to emphasize the importance of having female leaders. Programs or societies can be created to help take us women out of our comfort zones and push us to interact and socialize more on campus and how to gain the courage to be leaders. If we receive this encouragement, education, and support, more women will recognize that it will be fine and people will continue to support them.
On that note, I would like to end this article with a quote from Dr. Bannerjee during her speech at the SMUSA board of directors’ forum 2020. She said, “Sometimes you will be the only one in a room that looks like yourself, you are the only one in the room that has the same opinion or the same approach, but you can be a trailblazer and a change maker”. I hope this encourages more women to take part in leadership in SMU and get more involved in their school community so they can be the change they want to see.