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Anna Morton currently serves as Student Senate's vice president. She is the only woman holding one of senate's top three positions. (Macy Dirienzo | For The Post)

Leading Ladies

Since its inception in 1977, Student Senate has seen more than 30 presidents — only six of whom have been women.

For a body currently composed of 60 percent women, female senate presidents are few and far between; the last served in the 2006-07 academic term.

“There definitely are perceptions for each role, which I don’t think is a good thing, necessarily. … You shouldn’t be held to what past people have done, to those mannerisms or anything,” said Anna Morton, current senate vice president.

The president is considered the face of the organization, while the vice president is often seen as a “motherly figure” and the president’s support for the body’s internal workings, Morton said.

The treasurer serves as a more stable position in the body that some see the vice president as responsible for holding together, she added.

“This is the first female vice president I have seen,” said Senate President Nick Southall. “I do think that it’s the vice president’s role to kind of cultivate and set the tone of a certain kind of community for senate, whether that be a family community or otherwise, I think they really set the tone.”

Most senate ladies serve as a commissioner representing different factions of campus life.

“I think women sometimes hold ourselves back, and we think ‘I don’t want to do that, that’s too political. I would rather do the real work of the commissions,’ ” Dean of Students Jenny Hall-Jones said.

The topic of senate’s gender inequality has been discussed for decades, including when Sally Neidhard was senate’s vice president during the 2008-09 academic year.

“(It’s) the kind of organization where if you’re not careful, it can become a boys’ club; there needs to be strong women in positions of leadership,” Neidhard said.

This year’s gender inequality in senate was called into question when former senate commissioner Mary Kate Gallagher resigned in September, citing some members’ “disrespectful” and “unwelcoming” attitudes toward women.

Other senate women have felt similar disrespect.

Ann Charles Watts, former senate vice president, served during the 1997-98 academic year alongside a male president and treasurer. She said she was approached to join the ticket in part because of her gender along with her social standing, making her, she felt, an “unfortunate necessity” to her male running mates.

“In many ways, (senate) is a microcosm of the world that we live in, especially the more ambitious parts of the world,” Watts said.

However, for now, some are encouraging senate women to focus on making changes inside the organization.

“I think when women have underrepresented voices or when they feel like they have underrepresented voices, one of the biggest things they can do is support and encourage each other,” Hall-Jones said. “What I would like to see is for the women on senate to support and encourage each other and to kind of use and strengthen the voices that they do have.”

oh271711@ohiou.edu

@ohitchcock

 

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