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The Daily Tar Heel

Opinion: UNC must question why women are not running for SBP

Correction: A previous version of this editorial misstated the number of female Student Body Presidents among the last 10. There have been four. The editorial has been updated to reflect this change.

As the race in the Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders narrows, sophisticated conversations around gender identity and its relevance in politics are intensifying across the nation.

But these are not conversations that we can have about our own campus elections next week. We cannot have this conversation for one simple reason: No female candidate for Student Body President exists. In our student body president elections, not a single woman declared her candidacy this year.

To add to this imbalance, a mere four of the past 10 elected Student Body Presidents on this campus have been female. In the past three elections, only two women have declared candidacy. On a campus that is composed of 57.7 percent women, where are the women in our public student elections?

We must then ask: Why have no women stepped up to contend for this position? Are qualified female students uninterested, or is our campus climate so hostile towards women in the public eye that none run?

We do not pose definitive answers to these challenging questions, but we certainly believe that these questions are worth asking —and that all answers are worth listening to.

We would be disturbed to see this lack of representation in candidates at any point. But at this particular juncture, women, and especially women of color, are uniquely well-positioned to address many of our campus’ deepest weaknesses.

Though we will not have a single female option on the ballot next week, we hope that students at this university will not stop questioning why we do not.

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