Last year, no girls ran in the freshman election for Legislature. The result was a noticeable gender imbalance within Legislature, especially in terms of freshman representatives. A gender imbalance was also present in terms of leadership, as no girls held leadership positions.
This year, in an effort to encourage diversity, representatives from Legislature visited every section of World History, Identity, Status and Power (WHISP), the required freshman social studies course. There, they pitched student government to the freshmen, and their work has paid off: this year’s freshman election for Legislature yielded three female representatives. Additionally, there was more overall interest in participating in student government as a whole this year compared to other years.
Student government consists of three branches: Judiciary hears cases related to violations of student rights according to the handbook; Student Council represents the student body in interests unrelated to the handbook, for example, allotting club funding; and Legislature passes bills to create and revise handbook policies.
Legislature consists of 17 students, four from each grade and one “at large” representative. Members are elected for one year terms. In addition, 17 teachers serve on Legislature.
Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator Jen Martin, who has been a faculty member of Legislature for 21 years, said that it’s important for representatives to embody a wide range of student identities to ensure that all students are served.
“There were years where I would look and see no black students in our government. There have been years where I felt like we lacked diversity of school experience,” Martin said. “We were just sitting in a room with 17 students who all got straight A’s and were taking all AP [courses], and the only thing we ever talked about was those issues.”
Addressing last year’s gender imbalance was of particular concern to Martin and the rest of Legislature this year.
The problem, according to Martin, was not that last year’s all-male team of freshman representatives in Legislature or those holding leadership positions within the entirety of student government did a bad job. It was that girls were underrepresented.
“I will say this a million times over: all of these boys who were running were great. They were working really hard, doing great work for students,” Martin said. “It’s not really about that. It’s more about perspective; if there are no women in our leadership roles, then that’s 50 percent of our population not having a leadership role. That’s insane.”
Legislature chose to focus their outreach around WHISP classes because as a required freshman course, every student receives the same message. Senior Daisy Huang, who has been a member of Legislature for three years, explained the pitching process.
“We gave information about what Legislature is because the freshmen are new to the school and they don’t really know how it works,” Huang said. “Then, we convinced them that [Legislature] is really a place for anyone.”
Legislature’s efforts have paid off. In this year’s freshman election for Legislature, which was held on Sept. 17th, 11 students, the majority of whom were female, ran for four positions. Ultimately, three girls and one boy were voted into office. These representatives were Cady Broadrup, Phoenix Bowman, Sandy Xu, and Daixin Guo. As a result, Legislature is slightly more balanced in terms of gender compared to last year, with a total of 10 boys and seven girls across all grades. Last year, the ratio was 11 to six. Girls also hold three out of seven leadership positions within all of student government this year, a considerable change from last year where boys held all seven positions.
Another positive effect Martin noted this year was increased interest among freshmen in participating in any area of student government.
“I had more students [than in past years] come and talk to me and ask questions about running [for student government],” Martin said. “And at least half of the kids who didn’t win the freshman election showed up to run for Student Council. So, [students] are clearly very motivated to be in government and that doesn’t always happen.”
Freshman representative Phoenix Bowman said that while she has noticed that there are still fewer girls than boys on Legislature, she doesn’t see it as a negative thing.
“It makes me feel like my opinion as a female ninth-grader is more valued,” Bowman said.
Senior and co-chair of Student Council and Legislature Eric Bardon said that the goal has always been to ensure that every student can see themself represented in student government.
“At the end of the day, it’s going to be a democratic process of students electing their peers,” Bardon said. “But I believe that as long as more people run, which starts with more people hearing about the opportunity, you will see a more diverse elected set of representatives.”
