The Last Female ASB President

Considering how fast-spreading the women's movement has become, even at Samo, it’s curious that for the past four, now five, years, male candidates have won the ASB President seat. The recent March 2 ASB elections marked the fifth consecutive time where a male has won the office of ASB president.This is not to say that the past five male presidents did not win fairly; each were well-qualified and did great jobs. But this trend points out the possible underlying male-favoring bias that seems to have a hold over our student body.It’s often heard around campus during ASB election time that student government elections are mere popularity contests: whoever is more popular will win because all the people they know will vote for them. While this is subjectively true, there is a large percentage of students who don’t know any candidates, and they then succumb to “vote for the boy” voting mentality. This is where people, consciously or unconsciously, say to themselves, “I don’t know any of the candidates, so I’m just going to vote for the boy.” Now you may be thinking, “Who would ever say this? No one at our school would do that.” Perhaps. But in the last five years, and really since Samo’s very first ASB president, male candidates have dominated, and from a sociological perspective that’s no surprise.But, I won’t digress into theory when numbers demonstrate this bias more effectively. According to school records, in 2014, there were 43 students in the ASB class, more male than female with 53 percent of the males compared to 52 percent of females having executive board positions, not too bad. In 2015, there were 42 students in the class, more female than male with 70 percent of the males and 67 percent of the females having executive board positions. In 2016, there were 59 students in the class, more female than male with 52 percent of males and 50 percent of females having executive board positions. In 2017, there were 63 students in the class, more females than males with 48 percent of males and 26 percent of females having executive board positions. Additionally, in this year four out of the five ASB executive board members were male. This year, there were 54 students in the class, far more females than males with 63 percent of males and 29 percent of females having executive board positions. To see full stats, please see the figure below.Since 2014, more females have enrolled in ASB, so, gender equality has made progress. So, why haven’t we seen a female president in five years?In all ASB elections, no matter what position, there is one thing in common: the speech. A speech can make or break a candidate and for many the speech is the first impression they make on voters.“I think that speeches serve to reach the students that don’t already know about the goals of your campaign. More than half of voters go into the election assembly knowing who they’re going to vote for. The remaining students —the in-between voters— are impacted by the speeches,”  former ASB president Paria Sheshpari (’14) said.In the 2013 ASB elections, Sheshpari , now a senior at University of Texas, was elected the last female ASB president, and in her year she ran against another female Brenda Asilnejad (’14). This is the last time, for two years that Samo would even see a female candidate.In the 2014 ASB elections, Talon Hadfield (’15) ran against Brian Matusovsky (’15), who ran in a far from common election: Matusovsky’s speech involved singing the tune of Lorde’s “Royals” featuring their campaign slogan “Let Me Be Your Ruler.”A former I House Rep and Club Commissioner, Matusovsky recruited his friends and family and used up every penny of his campaign budget in his run for ASB president. “My posters were my image photoshopped onto the “Game of Thrones” throne and read ‘Let Me Be Your Ruler.’ I also cut out rulers from paper that said the ‘Let Me Be Your Ruler’ motto and handed them out. It’s a bit cringeworthy when I think about it in retrospect, but it worked,” Matusovksy said.However, Matusovsky’s motivation to run for ASB was crystallized after ASB classmate Samantha Hsieh (’15) decided not to run.“Samantha Hsieh ran and became Senior Class President in our years of elections, but in my opinion she deserved to be president more than I or Talon ever did,” Matusovsky said. “She had been involved in ASB since her first year, and was a really organized and hard-working person. I tried to encourage her to run, but at that point Talon had already decided to do so and she felt discouraged.”Hsieh, now a senior at UC Berkeley, shared that her decision not to run for ASB president was because she was devoted to her class president position.“Since I joined ASB my freshman year, I definitely had interest in being ASB president, but I felt torn . . . especially because I had started the first year of Freshman Steering. It was definitely more rewarding serving as Senior Class President, knowing I carried the position on throughout my entire time at Samo.”Hsieh said she never felt  discouraged from running for an ASB position because she was a female, but she did note the male-centric environment of the class.“I don't feel like [male leadership] was necessarily encouraged, but on a somewhat related note, I definitely felt like there was favoritism. Might have been more coincidence or genuinely something related to gender, but I'd notice guys getting away with doing less or not being criticized by our advisor for slacking off,” Hsieh said. “It was definitely frustrating to experience it firsthand and not see any repercussions. I was lucky that I did have older friends in ASB who I was able to see serve on [the executive board] and be successful, such as Paria.”While the 2014 election year was far from common, it brings up the question of “Should ASB speeches have rules?” The ASB advisor at the time, Bryn Boyd, thought so, and the following year, the rules forbade singing, rapping and poetry in the speeches.The following year, Jordan Golden (’16) ran against Dean Chien (’16), both males again. And while both were well-qualified and well-deserving of ASB Presidency, Chien had a slight advantage: he was the voice of Samo.“[Qualifications] are extremely important, and should be the first thing voters consider when selecting a candidate. Though elections could be called a ‘popularity contest’, they are in fact a popular vote--a direct choice of the people,” Chien, a sophomore at Johns Hopkins, said. “When I ran for the presidency, people across the school knew me for my qualifications as Speaker of the House (a member of the ASB executive board) and my personal qualities, like intelligence, humor and respect for all. A mixture of both qualifications and appeal to the masses is what elects any candidate.”Chien’s win may have been destiny, for his father John Chien (’83) had been ASB president In the 2016 ASB elections, we finally saw another female candidate when Fiona Story (’17) ran against Brandon Pascascio (’17) in a nail-biting race.“I had a lot of strong female candidates that wanted to run and did run, like Fiona Story is a rock star and she and Brandon were both great kids,” former Activities Director, Bryn Boyd said. “I don’t know if her campaign, ‘Make Samo Great Again,’ turned people away. Both of them were honest to goodness equals, so that was probably the most nerve-wracking race I’ve ever had as an activities director because both of them were so qualified.”While Story’s slogan was the eye-catching subject of this ASB Presidential election, she noted that her opponent’s speech was also very well-delivered, which she thinks helped him achieve his victory in the end.“I attribute Brandon’s victory to a really well-run campaign and an inspiring and engaging speech,” Story, currently a freshman at University of Michigan, said. “I thought he seemed so comfortable on stage and gave off an air of confidence and trustworthiness, which is definitely something students look for. He was also very passionate and lively which definitely helped.”In addition, both candidates agreed that the speech, no matter what it involves, is really important for student body voting.“With speeches, I feel like it varies every year. My freshmen year, the president won because his speech was like a song. I didn't do anything spectacular like that, so I can only base it off of whatever the candidates had to offer that year,” Pascascio, a freshman at University of Arizona,  said.In the 2017 ASB election, Gracie Fletcher (’18) ran against Griffin James (’18), who in addition to laying out his plans for ASB, gave a whimsical and entertaining speech about the YMCA basketball league success story of a kid named Michael Jordan. Fletcher took a more conventional route with her speech and spoke of her qualifications and her plans for ASB.“While I believe students care about qualifications to some extent, I don't believe one's experience is of chief importance,” James said. “As a voter, I find myself more inclined to vote for a candidate who engages me, or that I can relate to. It is hard for the student body to judge a candidate solely of merit because many aren't aware of their qualifications, and when one tries to cram their resume into a minute speech, they often have to sacrifice charisma and the ability to be relatable.”In this year’s ASB election, Dilay Akcora (’19) ran against Ryan Chien (’19).  Again, both candidates were qualified. Although many say that Chien had a “destiny,” much like his older brother, to win, it was very much in the hands of the student body to decide, and students decided on a male leader.This has some people considering the gender factor in these elections. Fletcher who praised all candidates running for offices does suspect that voters last year tended to side with male candidates.“I think just in general if someone doesn’t know who to vote for, they vote for the boy because men in power is easier to accept than women in power. Sadly, this is not just an issue within Samo’s ASB, but in our country,” said Fletcher.The intent of this article was not to criticize the young men who we have elected to the office of ASB president.  Rather, it was to examine implicit gender bias at Samo, and to encourage our community to forge new ways of thinking about gender and power. Though we appear to be a liberal and tolerant school community, we can be more aware of possible inherited biased ways of thinking.  And for the next female ASB President, whoever you may be, just know that many, if not all, of the presidents and candidates before you are in your support.“[For the next female ASB President,] know what you stand for and make sure the people around you know that they can count on you. Don’t be afraid to fail. Learn something from every experience you have, even the difficult ones, so you can always add to your experiential toolbox,” Sheshpari said.