South is nowhere short of leadership opportunities and places to participate in school organizations. Student Council, Student Association, National Honor Society (NHS) and an endless list of clubs offer students the chance to get involved with South events pertaining to their graduating class. While these groups are open to all students interested, one trend is apparent: female students participate at a much higher rate than male students. 15 out of 16 officers among the four grades are female. All five Student Association officers over at least the past three years have all been female. Seven of the past eight NHS officers have been female. In each of these organizations, which contain leadership positions voted on by the student body, female students have consistently held those positions and make up the majority of the population involved.
Among South’s most popular clubs is Student Association, which plans Homecoming and spirit weeks. While their attendance remains among the highest compared to other clubs, it has been female-dominated for years. While dozens of students come to each meeting, the Student Association advisor and South social studies teacher, Meg Pierce, can only recall three boys being regular members this school year.
“[Boys] don’t come [to meetings],” Pierce said. “It’s not something that’s done on purpose, they don’t come and we don’t know why.”
While the lack of boys does not slow their production, Pierce wishes Student Association could be more diverse. She understands the work of her group impacts the entire student body and should reflect what the body wants for certain events.
“Student Association is student government, so it should be a representation of the whole student body,” Pierce said. “It should be a sampling of everybody across the board.”
Along with Student Association, Student Council struggles to get male students involved. Assistant Principal and Class of 2027 Advisor Katie Parent recognizes the trend that more female students participate in class council but does not understand why. She shares the sentiment with Pierce of the importance of representing everyone.
“It is important for any organization, whether it’s class council, a job, etc., to have a diverse viewpoint,” Parent said. “The more gender diversity you have, the more socioeconomic diversity, the more racial diversity, the more opinions and viewpoints you are going to get contributing to your initiatives.”
There are various reasons why there is such a staunch difference in participation between genders, but Parent does not believe motivation is a fair explanation. She finds that each student has different aspirations, but gender does not affect the dedication students put into their interests.
“Every person, every individual is different,” Parent said. “I have had some male students who are highly motivated, and some not. The same thing goes with female students. I think it depends (motivation) on a variety of factors, and I do not know that gender is necessarily at play.”
In a student survey conducted by The Tower, 36.4 percent of male respondents cited being busy with sports as the main reason they do not participate in school organizations. Among these students was Jack Danielewicz ’26, who wished to be on student council, but was unable to because of time constraints being a multi-sport athlete.
“Sports is the main thing for me,” Danielewicz said. “As a freshman, I was planning on running for class treasurer and had my packet filled out and required the needed signatures. I needed to do an interview (with the class advisors) but had baseball and basketball during both interview options, so I had to drop the campaign. Scheduling with sports makes it difficult for me to participate in class-related activities.”
The expectations projected onto students heavily determines what they choose to be involved with. For Joey Reid ’26, outside of the classroom, he plays soccer and has worked his way up to becoming a varsity captain for the upcoming season. He believes that athletic excellence is more expected of males than academic excellence is, and this has influenced his extracurriculars throughout High School.
“A lot of the time guys are more expected to do sports, whereas girls might have less pressure to do sports but more pressure to do academic-related activities,” Reid said. “This begins a systemic process where more girls will apply compared to guys and will be in more of leadership positions.”
As far as gender norms go, school Psychologist Lisa Khoury confirms that boys might feel more inclined to participate in sports rather than clubs. However, she also views the developmental differences that contribute to the imbalance of male and female participation.
“In terms of maturity and executive functioning skills, and sort of maybe even leadership abilities and communication style, oftentimes research says that females are more advanced than boys at the same age,” Khoury said.
Reflecting on leadership qualities, Khoury says that developmentally, many of those skills are more common for girls at the high school age.
“That would speak potentially for girls getting someplace on time, being organized enough to run a campaign or even engaging in a friendship group girls sometimes have bigger friendship groups than boys do and that might lead to more constituents or votes,” Khoury said.
Gender stereotypes heavily influence human behavior, especially in adolescence. Three-year Class President Heidi Bryan ’26 believes that this accounts for much of the gap in male and female participation.
“I feel like [student government] is just not something that a lot of guys want to do,” Byan said. “It’s just not in their interests.”
Although student government has been able to run while lacking male viewpoints, Bryan still wishes she had access to a wider variety of opinions to represent the whole grade.
“I feel like less people would complain about things because there’s more voice and diversity,” Bryan said.
School organizations have struggled to appeal to male students. Parent think that male students must apply themselves to these organizations, at the same time that these organizations develop a better appeal to male students. Both sides need to put in the effort to create better representation in student leadership.
“It’s everybody’s responsibility,” Parent said. “ I think it falls equally on the organizations themselves [to appeal to male students] and the people who could potentially be interested in being a part of the organizations. The organizations should recruit people of all backgrounds and individuals should self-advocate.”
In recent years, female leadership in South’s clubs and activities has been a steady trend. However, beyond high school and college, men tend to work in more higher profile, higher paying jobs than women. With the rise of female leadership at a younger age, Pierce sees the possibility of a shift in gender inequalities in the workplace.
“Any leadership group skills are going to be really helpful for the future because a lot of what we do is events,” Pierce said. “It’s listening to what the community wants, and those are skills that will carry over into the future.”
