The Language of Leadership

If you’re a woman in an extracurricular group on Harvard’s campus, this scene will probably be very familiar to you: Your organization’s leadership elections are a couple weeks away, and you overhear a group of guys in the club having the “who’s running for what” conversation. Apparently the list of candidates is already set in stone—and you are not included in that list. In fact, no one has even mentioned the elections to you. You were thinking about running, but now are reconsidering the thought—you obviously don’t have a chance of winning. No one even thinks of you as a candidate for the job, much less as the person best suited to have it!

When people ask me why there aren’t more women in student leadership positions at Harvard, I tell them this story. Women don’t lack leadership positions because Harvard is sexist and students won’t vote for women. If a woman runs in an election, she is just as likely to win that race as her male counterparts. The problem is not that women are less likely to win elections, but rather that women are less likely to enter those races in the first place.

Women do not shy away from elections because they are inherently “less political” than men and therefore dislike campaigning. I was the campaigns director of the Harvard Democrats last year, and over half of my committee was made up of women. We like to get our hands dirty just as much as the guys do. So if women have no problem campaigning and are just as likely to win elections as men, why do so few of them run? It’s simple: because no one thinks of them as candidates. If people don’t view women as leaders, they are less likely to think of themselves in that light.

When I tell this to people, they always say, “Well, that’s probably true, Brigit, but how on earth do you get people to ‘view’ women as leaders? Get all the men on campus together and say, ‘Hey guys, girls are really smart and cool, too. You should start thinking of them as leaders and asking them to run for stuff?’ Give me a break.” Those people have a point—telling men to support women candidates is not the best way to go about business. If anyone is going to be able to fix the problem of women leadership in Harvard’s political groups, it is the women themselves.

First, women need to admit there is an actual problem. I can’t speak for all student groups on campus, but just look at Harvard’s political groups. During this year’s UC elections, the fact that out of seven executive tickets, only one woman candidate ran (and in the VP spot, no less) is a wake-up call to all those who are in denial. If people still have doubts, just look at the Harvard Republican Club (HRC)—their board is entirely male. That an all-male board goes relatively unnoticed is a testament to the male-dominated political scene at Harvard; if the HRC board was all-female, it would be considered a campus phenomenon. While it’s obvious that a problem exists, getting women to talk about it is easier said than done. Too often we try to ignore it, not wanting to appear whiny or get slapped with the label “feminist.” When we refuse to acknowledge the problem, however, it never gets solved.

Once women get over their apprehensions and start talking about the problem, they must then start fixing it. And believe it or not, it’s not that hard. All it takes is a group of girls getting together and saying, “Hey, our organization could use a little estrogen in its leadership. Have you all thought about running for something?” Minus the estrogen bit, men have the exact same conversations all the time. Women simply need to get together and support and encourage one another. The rest will fall into place.

If you don’t believe me, look at my own organization, the Harvard Democrats. When I joined the Dems my freshmen year, nine out of the 12 board members were male, including both the president and vice-president. Moreover, the three women on the board were the only three women candidates in the entire election. That year, a group of girls, including myself, got together and decided to change that. We encouraged each other to run for leadership positions and supported each other throughout the campaign. As a result, we had almost as many female candidates as male, many of whom were successful in elections; half the new board was made up of women.

After women install themselves in the upper levels of an organization, half the battle is won. As more women see other women in leadership positions, they are more likely to think of themselves as leaders—no persuasion needed. Again—just look at the Harvard Dems today. This year we had more female candidates than male candidates, and, for the first time in its history, women constitute a majority of the board. All it takes is a group of girls and a “who’s running for what” conversation, and no woman will ever be left out of an election. So let’s get talking, ladies.



Brigit M. Helgen ’08 is a government and comparative study of religion concentrator in Mather House. She is president of the Harvard College Democrats.