Why are all the Sabbatical Officers white men?

Elections may be over but now there’s another issue at hand.

You’ve all voted, (although the 5184 turnout suggests otherwise), and last night it was revealed that every single full-time Sabbatical Officer for the next year will be a white man.

In 2014, our President, Education Officer, Welfare and Campaigns Officer and Sports Officer were all women. But this year we lost our diversity. Should we now be worried about our position as women on campus?

The all male Sabbatical Officers for 2015-16

The fact women on campus are now under-represented has certainly caused a stir among us.

Cecilia, a third year Politics, Philosophy and Literature student, said: “I think it is gender misrepresentative and a shame.”

Katie, a second year Politics student, added: “I think it’s backwards. Last year it was more progressive.”

With this, many students were fast to pick up on there being more male candidates than female. In fact, there were only six female candidates running for full time positions, compared to a staggering 17 male.

The presidential candidates were all male.

Only one female candidate ran for Societies Officer this year.

Some agree it was a lack of female candidates that caused the result.

Taking everything into account, should we all pay less attention to gender, and instead simply have faith we have voted in the people who will represent us best? I disagree. The female undergraduate student population is currently 49 per cent at Warwick and it goes without saying that women definitely deserve better representation.

So you can blame it on the lack of female candidates, the strength of the candidates, or even the low turnout. Dress it up and side-line it however you want. But the lack of female representation is truly alarming.

Isaac Leigh, our new President, said: “All the candidates won on merit and I’m so proud of each and every one of them. I’d hate for this to detract from their success and hard work.

“But it’s so important that the Union is diverse and representative. We’ll continue to work really closely with the liberation officers and societies to achieve this, and discussions have already started. I really want people to know we’re taking this seriously.”

Isaac reassures us that this is being taken seriously

When the detailed breakdown is out in Week Nine, it will be interesting to see whether the few female campaigners lost marginally. But either way, this lack of diversity is something that will have to be continually addressed by the current team of Sabbs.