Women Hold Important, Crucial Positions at Exeter

Following both the recent historical election of a female president and vice president of Phillips Exeter Academy’s Student Council and a New York Times article featuring Phillips Academy’s lack of female leadership in their student government body, girls and women in leadership positions have become the center of discussion at Exeter.The debate on campus began with a New York Times article published April 11, written by reporter Katharine Q. Seelye, about Andover’s failure to elect a female Student Council president, despite the school’s attempt to alleviate the problem by establishing a co-presidency policy.Many Exonians criticized Andover’s method of reacting to the issue that was very much stressed in the New York Times article."I understand why the New York Times article was published about Andover because of their acute awareness of gender inequality, but if you look at Exeter’s history, we have had fewer female Student Council presidents than them," senior Candace Cho said.Upper Megan Do agreed. "I think it’s important to note that we do have a gender inequality problem, but I don’t think the way that Andover went about it was especially helpful even though more females ended up entering the race," she said. "It’s really concerning that even with the opportunity for a full female leadership, the girls don’t go for that and instead choose another male to run with, which highlights the fact that they need a male to legitimize their position as well and the pressure that success only comes with working with a male."These thoughts and responses to the New York Times article sparked a larger discussion especially in time for the Student Council Executive Board elections. The final elections included votes for three of the top spots on Student Council: president, vice president and secretary. This year was unique in that each position had a boy and a girl running against each other, amplifying the sense of gender divide.In the end, Phillips Exeter Academy’s student body elected girls for two of the three spots on the Executive Board of Student Council with upper Alice Ju winning the presidential race and lower Emily Lemmerman claiming next year’s vice presidency.Following the announcement of Ju’s victory in the elections, many congratulated her on a successful campaign and wished her luck for an optimistic year as the Student Council President. However, not all of the feedback Ju received was positive. Ju received inflammatory Facebook messages from students at Phillips Academy, portraying her run for presidency as purely gender-based."Students at Andover, that were all male, accused me of declaring Exeter ‘post-gender,’ which I found odd, seeing that they have no knowledge of what it’s like to be a student at Exeter and even less knowledge of what it’s like to be one of the first female presidents," Ju said. "They are basically assuming that the way that people think about women in leadership at Andover is the same at Exeter, which is not true."Although the issue of female leadership on campus was a heated topic leading up to the elections, Ju believed that the fact that she was female did not play a large role in her being elected for the role of president. "I got a few jokes about being a girl, but many of the people poking fun at my gender voted for me regardless. With a topic that can sometimes become very touchy, it's important to keep a sense of humor about things, and Exonians are generally good at that," Ju said. "We recognize that gender discussion is a serious issue, but we tend not to take ourselves too seriously."Ju continued, "I'm sure there were people who voted for me solely because I am a girl, and I'm sure there are people who did the opposite. I do feel, though, that most people voted based on the candidates’ platforms, ideas and experience, and I encourage that as much as possible," she said.A major point of discussion after Ju and Lemmerman were elected to top positions was whether or not the increased focus on the very simple fact that they are female diminished the emphasis on their actual leadership abilities."If anything, the pressure for female leadership may have detracted from my candidacy as the awareness of the issue may have led to people thinking that being a girl was the only reason to vote for me, while it isn’t about that at all," Lemmerman said.Ju agreed. "After I was elected, much of the focus was on my gender rather than my ideas and my plans. This was expected, given the recent events at other schools, but I hope that in the future that when a girl is elected, the focus should be on her qualifications, not on her gender."Despite the exchange of ideas about female leadership on campus, all things considered, most students found that there is a fairly good balance of male and female leaders among the student body at Exeter.Ju advocated looking beyond the simple record of Student Council presidents in the past decades, as they tend to reflect a very small portion of the actual issue of gender equality in leadership."I find that those statistics oversimplify and misrepresent the situation on campus. I see many young women taking on leadership positions in not only StuCo, but Exonian, ESSO and most, if not all, clubs on campus," Ju said. "There is no shortage of girls at Exeter in leadership roles in general, even in Student Council, in which girls constitute half if not more of dorm reps, class reps and committee heads."Do, who is currently the Editor-in-Chief of PEAN, agreed. "On our campus, I think there are a lot of female leaders—in ESSO, in the upcoming Student Council Executive Board and in various clubs. I’m pretty happy with the situation here," she said.