Male student government candidates usually don’t have to think twice about their safety while campaigning. Female candidates, on the other hand, face harassment on a regular basis.
USC recently made headlines after it elected its first female student body president in about a decade. Its student government had not even seen a woman make a presidential run during the nearly 10-year-long drought.
UCLA has elected six female student body presidents in the same time frame. Although that statistic might lead one to think the Undergraduate Students Association Council doesn’t have a gender-discrimination problem, women in student leadership at UCLA in fact continue to face forms of discrimination that their male counterparts don’t have to worry about.
Women have a strong USAC presence; nine out of 13 current councilmembers are women. The problem isn’t one of representation or the student body’s voting record, but rather the students’ often misogynistic attitude toward women that aspire to win, and many times actually win, student government elections.
The fact is, women in USAC may get elected, but their road to election is often pockmarked with sexism. Misogynistic speech or acts are hard to police, especially with the ubiquity of mobile applications like Twitter and Snapchat. However, the administration needs to publicly address covert misogyny in student elections just as it addresses more acute campus incidents, including the controversy surrounding Rachel Beyda’s appointment to Judicial Board and the placement of offensive flyers about Students for Justice in Palestine all around campus.
You don’t have to look far for evidence of the problem. USAC Transfer Student Representative and former Internal Vice President runner-up Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed competed against two men for the IVP spot last May. She said that, in general, when female candidates try to communicate frustration or passion, they come off as angry or emotional, a false perception that intensifies when the object of this view is a woman of color.
But this sexism often manifests itself in more acute incidents. Sadeghi-Movahed said that she was spat on while campaigning on BruinWalk last May, in addition to being called a “dirty Muslim.”
Sadeghi-Movahed was clearly targeted in this way partially because she is a person of color. But some of the discrimination she has faced is undoubtedly and exclusively gender-based. She was also criticized on Snapchat for what she was wearing while campaigning. One can hardly imagine a man receiving the same kind of criticism.
Incidents like these don’t stop after elections. Sadeghi-Movahed said she has an email folder dedicated to the hate mail she regularly receives, much of which is sexist. Additionally, although face-to-face harassment has decreased since her first election race, she still regularly experiences sexism related to her role as a student leader through online mediums.
The problem isn’t specific to this year either. Last year, former External Vice President Maryssa Hall often spoke openly at council meetings about the misogyny and racism she faced.
The first step to creating a more inclusive atmosphere for women in student elections is openly admitting we have a problem. Jerry Kang, the newly appointed vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion, could take this on as one of his first projects and help to make election-related misogyny and responses to it a part of the campus discourse.
Kang should make a campus-wide statement before the election and meet with candidates and their campaign managers to see how he can ensure their safety during what is bound to be a tumultuous fifth week of spring quarter.
The administration says it will take action if “incidents of harassment or bias that violate the UCLA Principles of Community” are brought to its attention. But it needs to be more proactive and try to prevent harassment from happening in the first place, rather than merely responding to it when it’s reported.
The treatment both Sadeghi-Movahed and Hall received is symptomatic of an overarching problem. Female candidates often don’t get taken as seriously as they should be by the student body. Rather than seeing platforms or qualifications, many students see an outfit to be criticized or a person to delegitimize based on gender stereotypes. Men are rarely, if ever, debased in such ways while running for USAC. To associate a specific gender with leadership qualities isn’t just archaic, it’s stupid.
This ugly side of USAC elections often gets dismissed as regular election drama, but it’s much more serious than the usual hoopla generated by candidates and their cronies. The student body and the administration can’t dismiss misogyny during election season as if it’s normal or just part of running for a popularly elected office.
Running for USAC often involves sticking your neck out, but that doesn’t give students free license to hack away at candidates’ identities. That isn’t constructive or even critical; it’s downright prejudiced.
What kind of propaganda junk is this?
This is a very clumsy attempt to distract and draw attention away from the more prevalent antisemitic issues currently being addressed on campus. Aram Ghoogasian obviously doesn’t like that antisemitism is getting too much attention so he tries to give us a new issue to focus on. His true purpose is painfully transparent. His attempt to distract people and minimize antisemitism is so obvious that it would be laughable if it weren’t so deceitful.
Ghoogasian, writes:
“However, the administration needs to publicly address covert misogyny in student elections just as it addresses more acute campus incidents, including the controversy surrounding Rachel Beyda’s appointment to Judicial Board and the placement of offensive flyers about Students for Justice in Palestine all around campus.”
So now “covert misogny” is on the same level as the “controversy” surrounding Rachel Beyda’s appointment… and “offensive flyers about Students for Justice in Palestine”.
Actually, Ghoogasian doesn’t even consider what happend to Rachel Beyda to be at the same level. According to him, Rachel Beyda’s appointment – nationally recognized as an antisemitic incident – is just “controversial”. Ghoogasian never even mentions the word, “antisemitic”. But flyers addressing SJP aren’t controversial; they’re “offensive”.
Ghoogasian then writes…
“You don’t have to look far for evidence of the problem. USAC Transfer Student Representative and former Internal Vice President runner-up Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed…”
What nerve this guy has!
First he tries to belittle the Rachel Beyda incident – reducing it to a “controversy” – then he introduces us to the victim of “covert misogny” – none other than Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed – who just so happens to be one of the original five perpetrators involved in the antisemitic incident against Rachel Beyda!
What a coincidence!
So I take a quick look back over Ghoogasian past articles and sure enough – he wrote a piece supporting the BDS movement. Another shocking coincidence.
Mr. Ghoogasian needs to check his bigotry meter because he’s clearly in the red. He’s working overtime to belittle any discussion of antisemitism because it clearly interferes with his agenda. He’s working overtime to defend people who feel the way he does – so he could hopefully restore some of their badly damaged credibility and help keep them in a position where they could continue to help maintain UCLA’s ranking as one of the 10 worst antisemitic universities in the country.
Mr. Googasian is not part of the solution – he’s part of the problem.
Terrific post. Unfortunately the Daily Bruin will continue to provide a mouthpiece to vile bigots like Googasian, which is why your well-researched, well-thought-out takedown is so necessary.