Survey findings on how Mt.A students feel about women’s representation on campus
Women make a significant portion of the student body at Mt.A, and their representation across campus spaces is critical. I asked Mt.A students their opinions on and experiences in academics, athletics, journalism, and student leadership, focusing on whether women at Mt.A are properly represented.
Incoming Argosy Editor in Chief, Jaya Condran, highlighted, “The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) reports that 60 per cent of newsrooms have no visible minority or Indigenous representation in leadership.” Condran believes this “creates disillusionment not only with readers who are women/people of colour with the information they’re reading, but also discourages them from joining the profession.”
Condran states, “people deserve to have their voices amplified and explored by their community, not be turned into a headline for a cheap story.” This is also my intent in surveying students around campus for this article. Students answered questions regarding their opinions on representation, challenges or barriers, opportunities, and inequality.
Elena Valiquette, a second-year philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE) student, believes women are not taken as seriously as men in society, being labelled as being “too emotional or too mean to act.” Olivia MacLeod, a second-year commerce student, expressed a similar concern for the commerce program, stating “commerce is an inclusive degree…[but] women are not taken as seriously in the field and may not be expected to be as smart as the men in the same field.”
Macleod critiqued the lack of women’s representation in the industry, giving the commerce program and society as examples. In the industry, she believes “women are given an equal shot at the interview as men,” but the lack of representation pushes women away from leadership roles, creating a cyclic issue.
Kathryn Gill, a second-year psychology student, highlighted differences in the degree of social attitude based on gender dominance. She said, “it is often called a soft science and less difficult…but if the program was dominated by men over women, it would not be viewed as an easy field.” Nevertheless, Gill believes “the psychology domain represents women very well.”
Emma Cholak, in second-year chemistry, criticized how students’ perspectives change towards faculty based on gender in the sciences. She explained, “In sciences, women professors and lab instructors are more often called strict, rude, and unfair, compared to their male counterparts who act the same way and are called funny or given much more grace.”
Nhu Y Pham, a second-year biology and biochemistry student, raised a similar point, saying female professors on campus are seen as “bossy or unprofessional for qualities male professors have.” Additionally, she sees biology being treated as a “lesser science due to being female-dominated,” alongside the generalizing idea of science being for men.
Many respondents, including Valiquette, Macleod, and Pham, call for more representation in academic fields and faculty, such as sciences, politics, philosophy, and economics.
Sports were also criticized for their lack of inclusion of women. Ashlyn Baillie, president of the Mt.A ringette team, spoke against the Athletics Centre, which has been taking away ice time from the team to give to the intramural hockey team, which is predominantly male. Baillie emphasized the role of the school, saying, “there are many teams at this school that are co-ed or female that do not see funding or representation despite their high performance in their respective sports.” She also detailed that the ringette team had not nominated at the ASCARS for the last three years.
Hannah Giles, a member of the ringette team, adds, “if the team were co-ed, or if there was a men’s team, we would never have been forgotten.” She explains, “[women’s] club teams often get less recognition than their male counterparts […] and sports like ringette and hockey [at Mt.A], which have no male counterparts, are especially ignored.”
Hannah MacFarlane, Co-Editor-In-Chief of The Argosy, says “all young women belong in places of leadership.” Underlining, “we face several barriers, like being told we are too loud and too opinionated, and this can be very discouraging, but we have to continue to step and lead and be the representation we want to see.”