It's a bloodthirsty beast's world

On average, women have stronger academic records. This effect is said to dissolve at the highest levels. Top scholarships, frequently referenced by both the University and committee members as a hotbed of disparity, show a troubling picture for the committee. Between 2008 and 2010, accounting for solely Princeton students, 10 Fulbright scholarships went to men, and 10 to women. Between 2000 and 2011, only taking Princeton students into account, nine Marshall scholarships went to women and 11 to men.

This parity dissolves when the scholarships and honors include non-academic factors. The Rhodes Scholarship, which must obey Cecil Rhodes’ will, executed in 1902, acts in accordance with the second of four provisions in the will, “fondness for and success in sports.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, 11 of the past 11 Rhodes scholars from Princeton have been men. The Pyne Prize winners have been mostly men, but the Pyne Prize deals with visible campus leadership, not academics.

At Princeton, men are overrepresented in mathematics, science, engineering and mathematical social sciences by a factor of two to one. Potential valedictorians of the 2000s have been, perhaps unsurprisingly, from these majors by a factor of two to one. This principle applies to the uneven distribution of Shapiro Prizes. More classes (in the case of engineers) and harder classes (in the case of introductory science classes, which include three-hour labs) seem intuitively helpful for winning academic prizes.

The discrepancies that are not explained using inconvenient statistics are those in the eating clubs and the USG. The ostensible argument that men have some biological advantage in executing the duties of the president or officer, either in eating clubs or the USG, is laughable. Imprecise though it may be, we are left with the visible aspects of “leadership” as our troubling factor. It is the only thing left. Something about this visibility, or the duties of leadership themselves, is distasteful to women who might consider running, or it is distasteful to their peer group, which may influence their decisions.

One can discredit the visibility and duties arguments using the same route. The reluctance is cultural, something learned after birth. But the preponderance of female undergraduates, graduate students, doctors and lawyers, along with the fact that there is a positive correlation between the number of female executives and the profitability of a company (at the top, with some noticeable exceptions) indicate a minor, if not irrelevant, role for nature-based arguments. The implication would seem to be that our campus possesses a highly aberrant culture that the rest of the country, by and large, has moved on from.

The report contains a wealth of useful information on this subject: women tend to avoid speaking up in precept because of personal discomfort, although they tend to do most of the work on group projects. This effect can and did appear in larger campus trends — women tend to prefer “behind-the-scenes” responsibilities where they can control the organization, or a part of the organization, directly, rather than delegating the work to others as would be necessary in what are characterized as “resume building” positions.

If women truly believe that higher-up positions are resume fodder and nothing more, then it’s rational for them to pursue the seemingly more effectual positions. If the most pressing issue is that women aren’t running for leadership positions because they feel they aren’t worth running for, perhaps a mentorship program would do very little — after all, the reason would be not a lack of familiarity or intimidation but rather a lack of interest in the positions. But I find this hard to believe. If “women,” writ large, are uninterested in leadership positions, then “women” would not be administrating or achieving in all the positions mentioned earlier — but they are.

If instead we are to believe there’s a social impediment, then the solution must be in educating and understanding the perceptions of the women who want to lead but choose not to do so. The USG can easily dispel false notions and bolster communication between existing leaders and aspiring leaders, but not with a single column and no subsequent action.

One of my biggest fears in this issue is that we’ll lose sight of the sex component of the debate. By focusing on universal programs rather than specific solutions, the USG may be missing the point and missing the boat. A sex-blind solution is fine, as long as it’s abundantly clear why such a solution would have differential effects for men and women. Columns are a good format for communicating ideas, but not for dispelling stubborn notions or creating programs. Only USG infrastructure can do that, and I hope, for all of our sakes, they decide to act quickly.

James Di Palma-Grisi is a sophomore from Glen Rock, N.J. He can be reached at jdi@princeton.edu.