When former MSU President Mary Koziol read the list of candidates running this year, her first instinct was to e-mail Suzan Fraser, who was president in 1988.

“Seven people running, not a single woman” was the gist of the message.

The lopsided ratio this year has raised eyebrows, but it’s not extremely unusual at this university. Historically, more men than women have run in MSU elections, and there have been other years when no women ran—1994, for example, saw 12 candidates vying for the position, all of whom were men.

When Koziol won in 2010, she was the first in 22 years to break a streak of male presidents - something she still feels is an important accomplishment.

“I thought, we need to break the streak but we also need different models of leaders out there. People need to see that you don’t have to fit a certain mold - and it’s not just about being male. A lot of people think leaders must be very outgoing, aggressive, assertive, charismatic - none of which I particularly identify with,” she said.

When she was involved in student politics, Koziol was often described as being passive.

“I think it was very assumption-based. At the SRA table, for example, I didn’t speak a lot, but that’s not because I didn’t have opinions. That’s not the same as being passive. I’m a very passionate person - I’m very assertive when it’s called for.”

Koziol is among only four women presidents elected in the history of the MSU. The three others are Ann Blackwood (1979), Suzan Fraser (1988) and current president Siobhan Stewart.

Like Koziol, Stewart has noticed the buzz around the skewed ratio this year.

“I’ve had people bring it up to me—both men and women,” she said.

The issue was also raised at the debate held in the Student Centre on Tuesday.

“People are excited when you represent them. If the electorate is diverse then you would want to see candidates being diverse,” Stewart said.

But the shortage of women running doesn’t mean there’s a lack of interest among potential female candidates.

“I know women who have considered running and in the end chose to back a male friend,” said Stewart. “Anybody can technically apply, but there are other barriers.”

It’s hard to pinpoint why more female students at McMaster don’t go out and get signatures for nomination.

Various factors could be at play in the choices women make, or don’t, about running: how women are socialized to deal with public scrutiny and view positions in political office is one of them.

“The student body has demonstrated that people are willing to vote for a strong female candidate – I don’t think there’s discrimination there necessarily,” said Koziol.

“I think the larger problem is the way we socialize men and women that leads to more men running. When women run, they have a really good chance of being elected - but they don’t [run].”

Koziol and Stewart were each the only woman running in their respective elections, which were a year apart.

“I was told repeatedly not to put women’s issues at the forefront of my platform,” said Koziol “I think that’s an interesting dynamic — that it’s okay to be female and run for an election, but you have to be careful about how proud you are about being female.”

Both she and Stewart recognized that running or being known as “the girl” in an election can lead to tokenization, although being the lone woman didn’t deter them from winning.

Stewart said she knows why she gets recognition for being a black female president, but she wants it to “not be noteworthy.”

“I’m not sure I want to be ‘the female representative’ or ‘the black representative,’ said Stewart. “You should pick your candidates based on platform and values, not gender.”

Stewart and Koziol agreed on the notion that an MSU policy to increase female representation may not work in practice, the idea being that a woman could be criticized for winning a seat because she was a woman and not because she was deserving of the seat.

“For me it doesn’t solve the bigger problems,” said Stewart.

The underrepresentation of women extends beyond the MSU to all levels of government. In Canada, women occupy roughly 22 per cent of seats in the House of Commons. The percentage is marginally higher (about 23 per cent) on municipal councils and in provincial legislature.

“I don’t think the discussion [of underrepresented women in student politics] would occur naturally within the student body. The broader society would need to change first,” noted Koziol. “I think the most important work the MSU can do is through forums.”

For women who’ve thought about or are considering running for MSU president, Koziol has some advice to offer.

“I would say, number one, seek out a mentor. You need a support system,” she said. “I’d like to see women really question why they’re not going for stuff like this. I think it’s a tricky thing to navigate: could you actually not do this, or do you just think you don’t fit the mold?”

 

The next McMaster Students Union president is a man.

At press time, we didn’t know which man. But we knew this: out of the seven candidates for CEO of the MSU this year, there were no females.

Last year, only one of the five candidates, Siobhan Stewart, was a woman. The ratio was the same in the year before. And the year before that.

At Tuesday’s debate, the moderator asked Jacob Brodka, David Campbell, James Dowdall, Adrian Emmanuel, Dan Fahey, Haman Man and Rory Yendt to comment on the election’s lopsided gender balance. Not surprisingly, they didn’t have much to say.

Not any one of those guys could reasonably be blamed. They had each made an independent decision to run against whatever competitors, male or female, would emerge.

But none of them were in a position to adequately address the issue, either.

Kim Campbell, who still holds the title of being Canada’s only female prime minister, wrote an editorial for the Globe and Mail this week about Kathleen Wynne’s replacement of Dalton McGuinty as Ontario’s premier.

“Why should we care about the representation of women?” she wrote. “Women’s lives reflect a different set of experiences that need to be represented in our democratic deliberations.”

We can’t reasonably control who chooses to run for MSU president. But there is something over which we can, and currently do, exert control: the structure of our Student Representative Assembly.

Many successful presidential candidates begin their student political careers with the SRA. And it’s the SRA that elects the three vice-presidents every year.

But the way we divide seats (by faculty) is archaic. A committee of the Assembly has been seeking to remake representatives-per-faculty ratios to make the proportions more consistent across academic divisions. But that overlooks a larger question: Aren’t there other ways than faculty that a student can be represented?

As hard as it might be to take the advice of a British exchange student on how to make McMaster students feel like they’ve got a say in student government, maybe MSU presidential candidate Dan Fahey had a point. As Kim Campbell pointed out, gender – and, for that matter, race, religion, sexual orientation and other traits – meaningfully influence a person’s experiences, and are therefore worthy of representation.

And maybe off-campus or international students need seats, too.

It’s a problem that not one female ran for MSU president this year. But it’s no use blaming McMaster’s men for producing seven candidates, or McMaster’s women for producing none.

But maybe the MSU’s next leader can find a way, something structural, to make more students feel involved.

Still deciding who to pick for MSU president? In addition to our debate with the candidates, see below for links to campaign sites, Facebook pages, videos and more.

[youtube id="u-5obsmB2Vg" width="620" height="360"]

RELATED: Our complete election coverage

Candidate information:

Jacob Brodka
Website: Brodka2013.com
Facebook: Elect Jacob Brodka for MSU President
Twitter: @BRODKA2013
Video 1: BRODKA 2013: UP FROM HERE
Video 2: BRODKA 2013: Our Platform (see the BRODKA2013 channel for other platform videos)
Headquarters: Student Centre, on the balcony to the left of the entrance from the arts quad

[youtube id="7J0jaNOWH6Y" width="620" height="360"]

David Campbell
Website: DavidCampbell2013.com
Facebook: Elect David Campbell for MSU President
Twitter: @VoteDC2013
Video: Vote David Campbell for MSU President
More Video: See David's channel for videos related to his platform
Headquarters: Student Centre, next to Booster Juice

[youtube id="giPTvOpvghU" width="620" height="360"]

James Dowdall
Website: JamesDowdall.com
Facebook: Elect James Dowdall for MSU President
Twitter: @JamesDowdall1
Video: It's Time - James Dowdall, MSU President 2013
Headquarters: Student Centre, a table near the front entrance

[youtube id="cTPgcfpFkYs" width="620" height="360"]

Adrian Emmanuel
Facebook: Emperor Adrian I
Twitter: @bradrian
Video: Space Maroon Proclamation

[youtube id="NsmQhQRLZqA" width="620" height="360"]

Dan Fahey
Website: Dan4MSU.ca
Facebook: Elect Dan for MSU President
Headquarters: Student Centre, outside of Union Market

Haman Man
Website: Haman.ca
Facebook: Haman Man
Twitter: @MSUHaman

Rory Yendt
Website: RoryYendt.com
Facebook: Rory Yendt
Twitter: @RoryYendt

In case you missed it (or want to see it again), here's the live stream of Sunday's MSU presidential candidates debate. Skip to 1:17 for the start.

During the debate, McMaster students, staff and alumni took to Twitter to discuss the candidates. Below is a selection of their tweets.

Rory Yendt is looking to “engineer a better student union.” The question is, how much does he know about the current student union?

RELATED: Selected questions and answers from our interview with Rory

Yendt, a second-year student and a SRA member, is campaigning with the primary aim of making the MSU a more financially transparent body. He wants every ancillary fee to go to referenda at least once every four-year period so that students can see where they’re money is going.

Referencing the recent financial mismanagement of MAPS, Yendt stated, “I believe students now more than ever want to know what’s going on with their money.”

Another finance-based platform point – creating an MSU scholarship – seeks to use the MSU surplus to help students who demonstrate financial need pay for their studies.

He especially distinguishes himself from the archetypical politician by stating his intention to avoid pandering and structuring his platform purely on buzz topics.

“I believe [running for MSU president] comes down to taking it a bit more seriously and basing it a lot more on what you plan on doing rather than just trying to convince voters,” he said.

However, Yendt’s campaign often reflects a lack of thoroughness and student consultation. The proposal for a 24-hr student space in Thode certainly addresses the widespread concern over campus capacity. But other platform points have either already been addressed (in the case of the MSU making its financial documents accessible on its website) or ignore the extent of the President’s role in addressing academic, administrative and community issues.

In his deciding to run only two weeks ago, Yendt sold himself short and limited his ability to compete with other experienced or well-researched candidates. Given how the MSU Presidentials are typically dominated by upper-year students with extensive political experience, in this election Yendt seems out of his depth.

In this year’s coverage of the MSU’s presidential candidates, we mixed compliments with criticism for each of the seven contenders. We talked about personality and picked on platform.

But even with the added commentary, we stuck with a pretty balanced distribution of coverage. Each candidate got their fair shake at an interview with the Sil, had a few paragraphs written about them and got space in the Opinions section to make their pitch.

And at the Tuesday debate, it will be no different. The candidates will sit in a row, getting equal time to respond to the same questions.

It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

In this election more so than most, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out who the more qualified candidates are. There are candidates who’ve been planning this thing for months.

They launched sites, made pages, posted videos and put up posters on day one. They have teams and campaign headquarters. They’ve got detailed and specific platforms.

They’re making a conventional run at MSU presidency. And they’ll probably do well because of it.

They’ll do well because they’re running as politicians first. But there are candidates who, before they were ever politicians, were simply political.

They had beliefs – ideologies, even. And that might hurt them in the election, because when it comes to MSU presidential races, running on an ideology can be like fitting a square peg (or maybe a square piece of red felt) into a round hole.

And that’s why, this year, the Silhouette is not endorsing anyone.

That’s not to say that picking the right person for the job isn’t important. And our editorial board certainly has some opinions on the matter.

But on Thursday, results will come in. Platforms and personalities will be forgotten as the candidates are ordered one through seven on the first ballot count, and then eliminated one by one until the CEO of next year’s MSU is chosen.

The divide between these candidates won’t matter any more. But it should. If not at the ballot box, it should matter once a conventional candidate has been picked.

Hopefully, both the president-elect and the MSU’s membership can take the genuine beliefs of the runners-up seriously.

If good artists borrow and great artists steal, what do great MSU presidential candidates do?

Candidate Jacob Brodka's "BRODKA 2013: Our Platform" campaign video series bears striking similarities to a video series posted by a former presidential candidate for Western's University Students Council, Adam Fearnall.

Brodka's video:

[youtube id="r9sFQpoXgxg" width="620" height="360"]

Fearnall's video:

[youtube id="KolTlDGv6iE" width="620" height="360"]

The Fearnall videos employ the same strategy of including three categories of platform points, presented in a series of videos that are all embedded as links at the end of the initial video. Parts of the script in the general platform videos are almost identical, as are the design elements and sequencing.

"In looking for ways that we could present our platform in a unique way that would actually engage our students, I turned my attention to Western because they're known to innovate, in terms of campaigns ... I did the design work for our whole campaign, used [Fearnall's] format, tied our theme into it and brought that to McMaster," said Brodka about the similarities.

"Is is similar? Yes, because it's effective and engaging, and that's the feedback we've been getting. I wish [students] would focus more on the ideas than the delivery."

There were also similarities in the platform points. Fearnall's platform included "merit-based pay" and Brodka's includes "merit-based salary," both of which suggested that the union president's full salary be withheld pending a performance review. Fearnall's "interest credit" and Brodka's "freedom credit" proposed that students be allowed one out-of-program, pass/fail elective.

Brodka's individual platform videos followed a similar pattern to Fearnall's, presenting the platform point and then an "impact on students" segment.

"Platform points are always recycled throughout the years ... a lot of how we could improve student life at the school and the student experience, especially for student union, is about looking at other schools," said Brodka.

Fearnall, who ultimately won the election last year, had his video posted in February of 2012. Like Brodka, Fearnall had also posted a video that was lighter tone to compliment the platform video.

"No," said Brodka about whether the similarities concerned him initially. "[Fearnall's] video is a public video and he's president of the USC. It's inevitable that someone could stumble across that."

The text of Brodka's introductory video is below:

"Hi, I’m Jacob Brodka. Over the past few years, the McMaster community has done some incredible things. So what do we believe? We believe we can only go up from here. In order to do that, we must ask ourselves: Where does real change come from? Well, it all starts with you. What makes McMaster incredible is the people that go here. It is up to us as students to ask questions and voice concerns together. We know that it can be overwhelming to try and keep up with issues on campus and the work that is being done to resolve those issues. We want to make things simple. This is our platform."

Text of Fearnall's introduction:

"Hi, I’m Adam Fearnall. Why are we different? We’re not just about the USC; we’re about Western. Change doesn’t start from the top. It starts with you. Here’s what we believe. This is our platform."

Over the next week and a half, social media will play a crucial role in the campaigns of the MSU presidential candidates. Since campaigning kicked off on Sunday, some have taken to Twitter and Facebook swiftly, while others have taken a back seat for the moment

Brodka and Campbell are doing a better job than other candidates of reaching out to followers and re-tweeting them. They've also been posting a lot of photos and video, which are likely to get more views and consideration.

On social media, interaction is key, and so is momentum. How the candidates interact with, engage and keep potential supporters may be more important than the number of followers or 'likes' they have -- though good numbers never hurt.

Here's a look at which candidates are using Twitter effectively early in the race.

http://storify.com/TheSilhouette/twitter-responses-to-msupres13-in-early-days-of-ca