A Varsity investigation has revealed that recent JCR presidential elections have created a gender imbalance in positions of college leadership.

After a recent wave of JCR and CUSU presidential hustings, Varsity has discovered that men lead almost 80% of student college councils.

Of 28 Cambridge colleges that accept both male and female applicants, 22 of the JCR presidents are male, drawing into question whether there are inherent issues with female confidence or political popularity within the Cambridge student body.

Ruth Graham, the recently elected CUSU Women’s Officer told Varsity that she was "not surprised" by the figures:

"This trend is one which we see in wider society rather than being a problem specific to Cambridge. Clearly both national and student politics are not nearly as accessible to women as they should be.
Even when equal numbers of women are running, they often still don’t get chosen."

I think this is a demonstration of latent sexism."

I am fundamentally opposed to this idea of a ‘natural difference’ creating this situation where women are not running for political positions. We simply have to fight with concerted campaigns to change attitudes towards the ability of women to be really excellent politicians"

This information has come to light following the announcement that the new CUSU president will once again be a man, whilst there is only one uncontested male set to run for presidency of the Union in Michaelmas term 2011.

So are women unpopular in presidential positions or do potential female candidates lack the confidence to run against male rivals?

One female JCR president contested inequality on both counts, having won over 70% of the vote against two male peers. She suggested to Varsity that it was more to do with biological preferences:

"I don’t think that females are particularly under-represented. Being JCR president is pretty much the only thing that I can manage with my studies, but I think that most girls might be more interested in doing lots of other things with smaller roles."

But not all students agree. "People believe men are more capable simply because they are capable of showing more drive," Rosa Sun, first-year medic, told Varsity.

Nevertheless, in the JCRs where men came out on top, there were only female candidates in 3 of the 14 presidential elections available for analysis. In many cases, men were uncontested.

Men are still very much wearing the trousers in student politics too – the four major political societies in Cambridge are all male-led.

The CUSU Women’s Campaign were unavailable to pass comment but, although there is a campaign to encourage women to apply to colleges with gender imbalance, the group does little to directly promote female participation in committees and societies.