I agree that male/female archetypes are a useful way to think about Union leadership, but the conversation seems to have shifted a little since waaaaay back in my day when I wore a bustle and whalebone corset to debates.

We used to talk about a ‘male’ Union being one in which the dynamic of competition between parties/chairmen — political and intellectual — was predominant. This did not, however, imply that the chairmen themselves were necessarily male; instead the idea was that the federal nature of the Union with respect to the parties led to a competitive, masculine atmosphere. Under this model, Union leaders make decisions on the basis of votes or directives backed by power, and lead by winning.

The ‘female’ Union was described as a more consensus-driven place, where the result of diverse parties coming together is compromise rather than winner-takes-all. Union leaders are those who build consensus, and to make a decision by directive without full communication and consideration of all viewpoints would be frowned upon.

To interpret this as male chairmen/female Union is a too literal, and, I think, makes it less useful. It’s not that party leadership is inherently male — you could find these same differences of style in the internal leadership of a single party. (Well, some parties…) It’s just that the Union’s constitution incentivizes parties to compete so we associate chairmen (male or female) with being the driving force behind a ‘masculine’ competitive Union.

I would also caution against automatically linking the male/female styles with weak/strong or decentralized/centralized Union. The association is there, but I would argue that it’s historical, not exclusively causal. There have been times in the Union’s history when a party or coalition has been strong enough to build a centralized Union under a leader who dominated the parties in a masculine style. In recent history, however, the parties were splintered and mistrustful enough of one another that a powerful, centralized Union came about through a female style, rather than under the purview of inter-party competition.

The men inspire/women manage dichotomy seems pretty laughable to me. I suspect that the argument was made by a male member of the PoR (really going out on a limb, there, huh?), under the following train of thought: 1) I am inspired by fierce intellectual combat and warrior brotherhood; 2) women are not fierce or combative or warriors or capable of being brothers. In essence, I am inspired by masculinity, therefore women are not inspirational. I take issue with both premises of this essentially tautological argument, but particularly as a matter of Union leadership, these gentlemen might do well to remember that not all people are inspired by the same qualities.

Finally, because I can’t help myself:
I would agree completely with Noah M that I made a number of major mistakes as president that left a hangover for the next year and generally held back progress. I would take them back if I could, and I think what’s actually notable about this is that almost all cases of my personal screw-ups in the Union were failures of ‘masculine’ leadership, not ‘feminine’. That is to say, not an inability to say no, but an unwillingness to communicate fully or understand the emotional context of decision-making. I tended to get in a mess when I made or authorized decisions without discussion and consensus.

S07 MFMMMFM
F07 MMMFFMM
S08 FFFFMMM

Granted, this was mostly an attempt to show off my utterly useless knowledge, but I think the real point here isn’t that women are less suited to leadership but that women are simply less numerous in the Union. That is to say, there seems to be something about the YPU that makes it more dominated by men simply because of quantity, not something about leadership having any sort of implication on quality.

Out of the last eight semesters, the chairmen have been:

F04 FXFMMMF
S05 FXMFMMM
F05 FXFMMMF
S06 MMMMMMM (!)
F06 MMMFMMF

Vis-a-vis the presidency, I would disagree with David II’s characterisations of which presidents were most successful, partially because he wasn’t here for the entirely preventable drama that arose from Meredith’s term and that continued into Roger’s–notably, an inability to say “no” when “no” just had to be said…

Nobody has been elected president since Christoforou without having had the administrative credentials to justify the vision they’ve presented, but the vice versa is also true. I’m with the other Noah when he says this dichotomy is utterly false.

I’d also ask if there is a noted dropoff of women from party e-boards to party chair(men). In the Libs, the problem isn’t moving from administrative positions to charismatic positions (accepting the false dichotomy for the time being), it’s starting up the pipeline at all. I have no idea if this is true or not for the POR, but it should be pointed out.

As for the rest, I know my party has a very different view of itself from Kate’s but I certainly don’t buy the idea the EBoard office is somehow suited to women in a way that a party chairmanship isn’t. Incidentally, given the choice, in my party I would prefer the first semester chair to be female, but that’s mostly because we have a gender ratio problem and I think having a female chair could help make it easier to recruit female freshman (I mean, it’s a problem when the only really feminist party in the Union has only 4-5 solid female members).

And on the inspiration question - this isn’t quite what you mean - but think about who in the Union has most successfully articulated a vision of the Union and gotten the rest of the Union to follow it. I would say, in the last few years, the two best examples are both female - Meredith Startz and April Lawson. Sure, they did it through the vehicle of union office (which, incidentally, isn’t really less important that party office. Sure, I consider Lib chair to be the most important position in the YPU, but I consider the chairmen of all the other parties to be mostly insignificant.), but that has proved to be the only way to lead the Union, for all this talk about the “male” leadership style that takes on other forms.

It’s silly to deny that success at winning seats on E-Board has increased the influence of individual women in the Union - it has given us a Union whose most powerful figures are mostly female. What it hasn’t done is make the YPU as a whole more welcoming to women. That’s a problem, but keeping women off E-board isn’t the way to fix it.

That seems to imply that the statement was said to you, right? Am I insane?

As for the working/cooking thing: “So I’m a bit late to join the “women in academia or the YPU” party (some of us have real summer jobs, you know)”

I’m not making any “real” comments on this line of posts because it irritates me far too much for me to talk sensibly about it, and I don’t see much use in perpetuating the discussion anyway.

ARS, I agree with you entirely that the sample size is too small to draw conclusions from on its own, but I’d be really interested to hear what you think about the wider perceptions in the YPU of suitable channels for masculine and feminine leadership. If my post had consisted purely of the statement that 1/7 Party Chairman will be female next semester, it would have been pretty idiotic, but how do you react to the idea that EBoard office is more suitable for female leaders than party office? Although I agree with Nicola that this probably isn’t the best place to discuss the thorny issue of whether EBoard leadership should be more about management than inspiration…