Students react to YUSU Elections: “It’s appalling that all the candidates for YUSU president are male.”

13 thoughts on “Students react to YUSU Elections: “It’s appalling that all the candidates for YUSU president are male.””

1. Oh would you GIVE IT A REST? Of course women face plenty of barriers in their lives, of course sexism is a genuine problem, but please, the fact that no women are running for YUSU President cannot be blamed on the white males who chose to run.

   At York we have a strong feminist movement and it is thanks to lots of good work by strong women that a relatively pro-female campus exists. The problem is not with the white males who put themselves up, it is with armchair feminists who rail against any and all ‘injustices’, genuine or otherwise; but when they actually get a platform to stand for election and make real changes, not one, not a single one, has bothered to stand.

   I know that I will get a bashing for saying this, so do me a favour and save it. Label me uneducated, tell me to learn my facts; frankly I don’t care what you say anymore. The women who are angry about the fact that there are no female candidates only have themselves to blame. You all had a huge opportunity to stand, run a campaign based upon respect and fairness and equality, maybe actually even make a change. You could have helped each other and use your networks and collective intelligence to finally get YUSU a female President. Instead not one of you bothered. You’ve no doubt found yourselves excuses that all revolve around the oppression you face, blaming every single white male before you even consider that you yourself might be to blame. If you cared as much as you make out you do, you would have ran. Hypocrites.

   Stop blaming ‘the system’, and start realising that YOU have contributed to this problem.

2. Surely its up to candidates to nominate themselves. If only white men were elected, that would be democracy, but we could have a genuine discussion about why that was. But candidates? I would have loved a wider choice of candidates, whatever they may look like. But again in the end its up to every single individual to consider running.

3. I like how this is just Tweets from Twitter.

4. All the women who are complaining.. WHY DID YOU NOT RUN. It’s nobody’s fault but your own.

5. They’re also all white but no one seems to give a shit… #justsayin

6. I understand being appalled at the lack of women in appointed positions, in government, etc. but this is a YUSU election that literally anyone could sign themselves up for. If you’re appalled at there being no female candidates, why not put yourself up for the position? Be that change. There was nothing stopping you in the slightest.

   You can’t be appalled that nothing’s done when you had the genuine opportunity to sign up and do something, and you chose not to take it. There is nothing to be appalled at other than collective laziness.

7. This is the fourth year I’ve been here and every year these complaints piss me off. No one is orchestrating who is and isn’t standing for you to choose from. It’s not their fault no women stood. If you feel angry that you are underrepresented then why didn’t YOU stand for gods sake?

8. To any female students disappointed by the presidential candidates – if you don’t like the fact that all the candidates for president are men, then run for president yourself! It’s a pretty simple solution!

9. This “article” puts across an interesting point incredibly poorly.
   The issue is not with the candidates who did run (good on you guys) but nor is every single individual female student who chose not to run responsible for the poor representation (not everyone wants to be pres).
   The question is why. Why do women not feel comfortable putting themselves up for nomination? Why do minority ethnicities not feel confident to run for pres?
   It was the same with the university challenge team – everyone needs to be careful not to slate the people who actually run in these things, but it should also be okay to contest and discuss why candidates don’t represent the actual demographic of the student body.

10. Remember last year when we had a woman *did* run for prez and everyone made jokes about tokens and angry manhaters? #justsaying

11. It’s so much easier to whinge on twitter than to actually try to make a difference. If these girls feel so strongly about the issue, why have they not put themselves forward as a candidate?

12. “Many students were disappointed”, there are literally three disappointed tweets you have there.

13. Rather than whinging why don’t you run yourselves. Sorry for being white and having a penis and because of that reason it stopped you.

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