Gender equality vital to changing University's normative atmosphere

Students elected their fourth consecutive female Duke Student Government president in Keizra Mecklai earlier this month. Mecklai's election continues the reversal from the previous trend that saw one female DSG president in the seven years before 2011. Yet, Colleen Scott, director of the Baldwin Scholars program, has remarked that, even as she applauds the victory, there is still room for improvement. For example, only three of this year’s eleven DSG executive board members are female. Scott has alluded to the need to still constructively identify paucities on campus in female leadership and further pose the question of whether winning elections and earning appointments reflects real change in gender inequality.

Beyond the four-year lease on high quality students that bring fresh ideas and changes to Duke every year, the University receives its long-term inspiration and broad strokes vision from its administration. Although upper leadership of the University boasts of such eminent female figures as Provost Sally Kornbluth, Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek and outgoing Dean of Arts and Sciences Laurie Patton, only 14 of the 37 members of the Board of Trustees are women. While the “Elect Her” initiative and the Women’s Center’s Pipeline Series, among other programs, prepare undergraduate women for success, administrative and faculty action against gender inequality needs to start with the University itself. We commend the administration’s receptiveness to equity concerns and, therefore, urge attention to this inequality within the Board of Trustees. Everyone stands to benefit from the translation of diversity to improved university policies for the student body, especially on issues such as Title IX and sexual misconduct.

More subtle than these numerical differences, however, is workplace atmosphere for faculty. Last week, former Duke professor Jason Mendez visited campus, reigniting discussion of his departure and whether attention is being paid to systemic and not necessarily overt “microaggressions” against minorities as well as women.

This distinction brings us to ask just how big a step forward it is to have a woman fill a leadership role. Do such appointments actually reflect improved gender equality on campus? Some argue that representation in numbers does not necessarily mean representation in perspectives. Women who occupy positions of power but still think in patriarchal ways are counterproductive to upsetting inequality because their appointment pacifies the itch for gender equality without addressing the issue whatsoever. The point is not to have an equal tally count of men and women but a compelling presence of perspectives to foster a productive atmosphere in executive and administrative spheres. This is why we commend the students for their election of female DSG executives, demonstrating their mindset of what Mecklai describes as not caring “if this person has the same gender as before."

Mecklai’s election, the appointment of Dean Patton as Middlebury’s first female president and the host of influential female administrators at Duke speak well for gender equality at the University, but being especially cognitive about gender inequities and solutions and aware of the areas for improvement at Duke are crucial to meaningfully changing the University’s normative atmosphere.