Which United States congresswoman has the “biggest tits” on the House Floor? I doubt our congressional representatives have an answer. A handful of men on the Wesleyan Student Assembly, however, do choose a female WSA representative as the winner each year.
While I can’t speak to whether sexism was prevalent in the Wesleyan Student Assembly before this school year, I have witnessed—and experienced—a significant amount of sexist attitudes as a committee chair this last year. I want to make clear that I am unsatisfied with the term “sexism,” as it reinforces the gender binary and also greatly oversimplifies a phenomenon that is increasingly too nuanced to be labeled with a concept so sweeping; however, for the purposes of this op-ed, I will note these inadequacies and continue to use the word “sexism.” I define “sexism” as the general trend in which peoples instigate, perpetuate, and condone the elevating of men and the subordinating of women. In this University, which is known for being so self-aware and politically correct, we have one institutionalized group that purports to represent the entirety of the student body—the Wesleyan Student Assembly—and it is in this assembly that I have witnessed a startling amount of this sexism.
Sexism on the WSA takes two primary forms. One is blatant, explicit, and quite clearly wrong. I used the “best tits” contest—a real-life occurrence—to grab your attention; but the jaw-droppers don’t stop there. Female guests who walk into general assembly meetings in Usdan are evaluated for their physical attractiveness days after or even during (via the handy medium of g-chat) the meeting. A handful of men once high-fived each other in front of me when they learned that some particularly “smokin’” female guests would be returning to the assembly, because, as they explained, they were just so pleasant to look at. Consider that the term “bitch” is routinely thrown around to describe the member of the assembly who does the majority of the grunt work. Consider that I frequently hear men conceiving of plans to get women elected to the Executive Committee or the assembly—not in the name of equality, but rather in the name of making the disproportionate male-to-female ratio appear less conspicuous. Meanwhile, I have never heard those men contemplate why the numbers are so skewed in the first place. Lastly, consider that these things have become commonplace, and are barely questioned.
Yes, men of the WSA, you mean to be post-modernist and retro-ironic with your outrageous jabs at women’s hotness and your “best tits” contests. Yes, of course, we know that you don’t actually think women are inferior to men. But consider the subconscious motivations behind your saying and doing these things, and the implications they have for us all, and then consider that your actions and words are correlated with some disturbing facts: 1) at the beginning of the year, nine out of forty members of the assembly were women, 2) I have never heard of a woman serving as WSA president, and 3) these behaviors make me personally uncomfortable to call myself a member of the WSA.
What I think is even more pernicious is the other form of sexism: subtle, implicit, and insidious. Recently, a member of the WSA—a prominent, male leader—was questioning two female representatives running for the position of one committee chair. He made an inadvertent, apparently hilarious pun: “We will be expecting you both to put out a lot,” he said, and paused for the assembly to laugh at the insinuation that women would be expected to give sexual favors if they were to chair a committee. I ask you to unpack that. Imagine being a woman, coming onto a forty-person assembly dominated by men, and imagine being in the vulnerable position of speaking in front of the assembly and trying to prove yourself qualified for a leadership role. Wouldn’t such an exchange make you highly uncomfortable, decrease the likelihood of your wanting to run in the future, and subconsciously communicate that student government is a place where men are leaders and women are convenient sexual distractions? And how would you feel when the majority of the assembly took the speaker’s cue and laughed loudly at his seemingly innocuous jab?
Also recently, two high-up male members of the assembly showed their excitement at an incoming female representative being—in their words—”Bangin.’” My mind instantly reverted back to my own election to the assembly, as a female freshman representative. I had to wonder: what did the high-up male members say about me? My skin crawled at the thought of it.
Added to this category is the procedure and rhetoric practiced by WSA members, both of which are highly politicized. Not only does such behavior detract from the productivity of the assembly, but it also transforms sensible discourse between students into dramatic, egomaniacal battles between representatives-turned-tyrants. The practices of nasty campaigning, unnecessary cattiness, blatant self-aggrandizement, and endless bureaucracy constitute some representatives’ attempts to transform student government into a real-world government. In this way, they remove themselves from the actual setting—a room in Usdan—and take it to a place that makes them feel stronger as men.
I am going abroad next semester, and so will no longer be serving on the WSA. I am writing this op-ed because I believe these patterns of sexism are unacceptable, and that we are fully capable of not only eradicating them, but also demanding much, much better. Wesleyan, you elect your representatives. Don’t elect based on gender, but do elect based on who you want to be representing you—both in terms of your interests on this campus, and in terms of your principles.
I ask that WSA members accept that 1) they are a student government rather than a congressional body, and 2) if they do choose to mirror a more professional political assembly, that they mirror a normative conception of such. As Wesleyan students, we necessarily study not merely how things are but how they ought to be. I ask you to extend those lessons to WSA, to apply what you have learned from your education and actualize the kind of government you want to see in our own country. Surely that is not one in which representatives become so consumed with ego battles that they lose sight of constituents’ issues, in which presidential candidates—unsettlingly—send you mass texts to solicit your vote, or in which women feel self-conscious of their body type upon entering a room.
WSA members, do not push for women in leadership roles to save face; rather, foster an environment that allows for equity and open-mindedness. You are elected to represent the student body and your behavior does have consequences, and so you must be particularly critical and conscious of your words and actions when in WSA settings.
Perhaps most crucially, I ask that the women on the WSA—and their allies—continue to remain vigilant and expose any and all sexist behavior. I hope that you continue to air out the WSA’s dirty laundry, despite how stinky it’s getting.
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