If you are the person who will glance at this article and instantly become angry (how could he?), then please do not read this article. Stop here.<\/p>\n
Gone? Good. Such attitudes of intolerance towards views that aren\u2019t one\u2019s own are part of the problem and indicative of the state of discourse at Fieldston today.<\/p>\n
This article is against the proposed gender mandate which would enforce a male-female partnership for every candidacy duo in the FSG elections for different reasons. I want to stress that, before delving into this issue, there is indeed a grave problem at Fieldston (and at large) with misogyny and discrimination. I respect what the mandate is trying to do and the opinions of those who support it; they are certainly valid and rooted in devastating realities. That doesn\u2019t deter my opinions.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think that it should be mandated that FSG presidents must not be the same sex?\u201d That is the way the question of the gender mandate was posed, which seems to suggest no room for those who do not identify as either sex nor those who are transgender or genderqueer. While some may suggest that this is verbal nitpicking, I am not alone in my assessment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have the mandate not be a boy-girl ticket, but make it mandatory to have partners who simply do not identify as the same gender,\u201d says Form V co-representative Julia Rosenberg, who is pro-mandate in some capacity. Dejon Bunn-Constant (VI) elaborates on this point.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have an issue with the mandate because it reinforces the gender binary, and erases the identity of genderqueer people at our school by discouraging them from running,\u201d says Bunn-Constant. Even those who have not been at Fieldston very long can envision future complications.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can only think of students who do not identify as (either) female (or) male. Introducing this mandate would make it impossible (for them) to run as candidates,\u201d states Bence \u201cCsebe\u201d Cserkuti (V), whose interest in and knowledge of this issue is remarkable for someone who has only been at this school for a few months.<\/p>\n
The reason that I am presenting these sentiments, even in a compressed format, is to demonstrate that a mandate proposed to produce equity in a very Fieldstonian manner is not being stated in a very Fieldstonian manner. I find this rather odd. Clearly, I am not alone in that regard, even joined by people who are pro-mandate. Luckily, this is an issue that can be resolved quickly, and I\u2019m confident that the exclusion was not the intention of those involved in crafting the proposal.<\/p>\n
Now we can begin to discuss the matters that are deeper-set. I think that it is rather curious that the tone that this discussion has taken has always been that the young men will be forced to \u201ccarry the weight\u201d or \u201ctake on\u201d the young women on the ballot; isn\u2019t it possible for the young women to be in the position of power within the duo? These two ways of suggesting who will be \u201ccarrying\u201d whom is rather ridiculous to me, especially when the former suggestion is the dominant one that I\u2019ve heard from both young men and young women. What I\u2019m afraid of with the mandate is that this sort of \u201ccarrying\u201d attitude, which I believe will persist particularly among young men without addressing their place in the gender conversation, won\u2019t go away because of the events that precipitated the mandate itself. Would Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie, Malala Yousafzai, and Oprah Winfrey be role models for young women if the Sorbonne needed to have a female professor, if the Nobel Peace Prize winner had to be female every other year, and if ABC had to have a certain number of shows hosted by women? I would think not – in fact, I think the mandate creates a precedent for the commodification of one\u2019s social identifiers.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s play the commodification game for a second. Even by these confines, are you telling me that two young men or women who are non-white, non-Judeo-Christian, and non-hetereosexual are less worthwhile to be FSG co-presidents than a white-as-snow male-female duo who are as perfectly groomed as the hedges at their country club?<\/p>\n
Another fact: I had to play the above card (in paragraph form) as part of this article. There\u2019s no way around it; there is a certain love of using identities as objects. It even worked for me: Sk\u0142odowska-Curie, Yousafzai, and Winfrey. What we\u2019re doing here is promoting a visible diversity, not celebrating the inner realities that make those visible diversities important. I can\u2019t help but think that is is a more cinnamon-y, toastier, crunchier diversity – it\u2019s the diversity you can see! – that erodes what we\u2019re actually trying to accomplish. It\u2019s a step in the right direction, but a leap in the wrong one.<\/p>\n
So, if the goal of the mandate is to create balance in leadership, then what is the goal of balance in leadership? I would think the goal of balance in leadership should be to create results that come from a varying array of opinions and backgrounds, not to promote the dogma, however noble, of one ism; this is reckless ism-ing at its best intentioned and most harmful. Unfortunately, that\u2019s the sort of ism-ing you find in high schools, especially ones that beknight themselves with progressivism.<\/p>\n
If the goal of the mandate, as it stands, is to show young women that they can become leaders, without regard for the competence of those young women, then we have arrived at a fork in the road: do we promote gender diversity at the expense of Fieldston\u2019s well-being or do we promote Fieldston\u2019s well-being at the expense of gender diversity? Clearly, the mandate supports the former, at least in the long run. That is not to say that a young woman who runs isn’t competent (I imagine it would be quite the opposite in general), but that meddling with how the duos are formed will undoubtedly lead to more poor candidates and presidents.<\/p>\n
It’s important to remember here that young women can run, they just haven\u2019t. I don\u2019t think that young women have any lesser chance to win a presidential election at Fieldston than young men, but there is the very real stigma and pressure that comes with being a young woman, particularly one that speaks her mind in a public setting. So what\u2019s my solution?<\/p>\n
Anyone eligible but afraid to run, regardless of background, it is up to you to make an effort. I know it\u2019s hard. I know it\u2019s scary. But it doesn\u2019t matter if you don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to win (I – whose outer lack of diversity you can see can\u2019t trump the inner diversity I know – didn\u2019t think I was going to win): you have to make a stand. Even getting up onto that stage to speak is a victory. However, it\u2019s only a victory, a true victory for you and for people like you, in whatever way that means – too non-white, too fat, too depressed, too woman, too anxious, too non-heterosexual, too non-cis, too ugly, too different – if you run on your own accord.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the source of change.<\/p>\n
Please understand that this is not an article to simply disparage and discredit the work of this community towards becoming more inclusive, diverse, and informed. To love my school is to criticize it; I want what is best for this school and I always will. Now, my idea of a better Fieldston may not be the same one as yours; it almost certainly isn\u2019t. And it almost certainly isn\u2019t the idea of the best Fieldston.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just an opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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