Thirty-nine years after merging with Abbot Academy, Andover has achieved a near even gender ratio in its student body. Yet this 50-50 gender split is often not reflected in student leadership positions. According to the Dean of Students Office, there have been only four female Student Council presidents since 1973, when Phillips Academy became coeducational. The last female president was Allegra Asplundh-Smith ’04. Uday Singh ’12, President of Student Council, said that although he believes that girls and boys have an equal chance at becoming school president, girls at Phillips Academy often step into more creative and active leadership roles. “Traditionally, especially in terms of government, men tend to gravitate towards larger leadership roles. Women on the other hand, not to be stereotypical, generally focus on more creative roles. Maybe it stems from the notion that typically women are smarter than men, which to some extents is true. I’ve come to notice women at Andover [are] involving themselves more in organizations such as the Courant, The Phillipian and Pot Pourri,” said Singh. He continued, “I’ll say that these statements are generalizations. In a school like this where you have selectively created a body of students who are very creative, highly intelligent and extremely motivated, both women and men tend to be involved in every organization. It is only a question of to what extent they are involved.” Similarly, Paul Murphy, Dean of Students, said that the reason that most Student Council presidents have been male may be because of a lack of real involvement in the role. He said that girls may tend towards leadership positions that require more active participation. “One might argue that when you’re school president there isn’t really a lot to do. You don’t do a lot. You don’t produce something. It’s not like a community service leadership. Even Cluster President does stuff within a cluster. The school is almost too big to allow one person to get something done, which is a problem within the presidency, not gender,” said Murphy. “We’ve had female leadership of this school for the last 18 years, so it’s not like there haven’t been models for good leadership as a school,” continued Murphy. On Student Council—which is composed of School President, Vice President, Executive Secretary, Cabinet and Class representatives—three of the 13 members are girls. Tessa Peterson ’15, a Junior Representative, said that she does not think the smaller number of girls on Student Council creates any friction or tension in the group. “I think that it’s fine. I think it’s something that everyone is used to. I guess it’s not a good thing that we’re comfortable being a minority. But it’s not something that I would worry about,” said Peterson. Carlos Hoyt, Associate Dean of Students and coordinator of the Personal and Community Education (PACE) program for Lowers, said that the Andover community should consider having two gender-designated co-presidents. He said, “We exist in a society that advantages males in a way that is simply unfair. Females still don’t earn as much as males do. There is a stigma against females in leadership positions. The playing field is already unlevel. So what do we do when we come into a situation like that? Do we say that the situation is natural? Because it’s not really naturally, it’s just what we found. Or do we say that as an intentional school that wants to build equality, foster leadership aspirations across the board, we are going to intentionally re-engineer to make it even?” Hoyt continued, “[Gender selection] happens in admissions too. We think that evenness is so important that we’re going to select for it. We’re not going to go strictly on scholastic merit. Who you are in this world matters to us. Obviously it matters beyond sex. We do it for geography, we do it for ethnicity. That matters for us to build a pluralistic community. Should this [presidency] matter to us in that way too? Should we engineer an opportunity for a girl and a boy to work together as leaders of this school?” “My wish is that we face those things head on and we decide what we want to do about it instead of accepting the cultural norm when we know the cultural norm is wrong. We consider ourselves a counter-culture institution,” said Hoyt. Murphy said having two gender-designated co-presidents might feel “engineered.” “I’d like us to move to a place where we could count on equal representation naturally. It’s important for the school, it’s important for decision making,” said Murphy. Similarly, Singh disagreed with Hoyt’s suggestion to have two co-presidents. “I don’t think that being a female or a male gives you a greater sense of leadership over the other. I especially do not think that by having a female president there would be any difference from having a male president, and vice versa. I think if the best candidate who is running is a female, she should have that position to herself. The same is true the other way around. I don’t think we should look at it ‘You’re the female president and you’re the male president.’ I think we should say, ‘You’re the school president because you embody the school,’” said Singh. “Honestly I would say no. That makes it easier to win a competition that maybe you don’t deserve. I would say that primarily student council’s priority is to be strong and to be the best that it can be. And if that means we’re going to have mostly boys in it, then that just means that they’re the ones that have the most drive. I would say that it would be far better to have the best candidates succeeding than one boy and one girl to be elected,” said Peterson. Outside of the Student Council, the gender ratio in student representative positions is much the same. There are three female cluster presidents and two male cluster presidents. There are currently four girls to six boys who serve as Discipline Committee representatives. Three out of the ten day student representatives are female. Half of the ten Blue Key Heads are female. Murphy is appreciative of the fact that in recent years, there has been equal representation of females and males in the Cluster Council and Upper Representatives. He said that this might stem from the fact that students are allowed to elect their top two or top three candidates. There are approximately 100 student run organizations on campus. According to the list recognized by the Student Activities Office, there are 77 girls and 75 boys who serve as co-heads of clubs. However, many of the largest organizations on campus, including Model United Nations, Philomathean Society, Math Club, and The Phillipian are currently led by male presidents or co-presidents. Female leadership dominates most of the 26 cultural clubs officially recognized by the Community and Multicultral Development Office (CAMD). According to the list from CAMD, girls fill 39 president and co-president positions, compared to the 18 positions filled by boys.
