The motherhood penalty…

Set against these challenges there are powerful ways our community, and every all-girls school, can work to counter systemic biases and other conscious and unconscious forms of discrimination that contribute to them. One of the most striking is the absolute assumption of the normality of girls and women taking the lead. The simple fact of every student leader being a girl has power. The same culture permeates the staff body: the shared purpose of those working in girls’ education is female empowerment, and that is evidenced by the inspiring women leading teams of all kinds and sizes across the school.

While in most cases this is as natural as breathing, which is the heart of empowerment, there are times when it needs nurturing. Female leadership in every function – finance, IT, marketing, estates – needs equal encouragement, as does balanced leadership at the most senior academic and business levels. It is no good waiting for perfect applicants to emerge. Schools must have mentoring programmes, recruitment goals, active search, and an equally active attention to the visible and invisible factors that may deter women from specific roles and opportunities.

The Girls’ Futures Report was recently produced. Some seized on the fact that ‘being a leader’ ranked lowest of 17 attributes in terms of career aspirations for girls: but what the report made plain is that they are not interested in the model of leadership we all see too often in the world – a loud voice, limitless self-belief, swagger and speech-making. They believe in a model of leadership that means working in a team, being committed and responsible, inspiring others, appreciating individuals, helping them to achieve their best.

This has been characterised as a female model of leadership: but in truth it just seems like a better model of leadership – more humane, more collaborative, more effective. We see it in student leaders all the time – the mutual respect they show one another, the desire to include, the readiness to listen. One of the most important actions a leadership team can take is to heed this example and demonstrate their commitment to it. We have to ensure that leadership is transparently based on the values we foster in classrooms.

Empowering female leaders is in part about a culture of leadership that matches the leadership girls show in their own lives, and that looks and feels like something worth doing - in every sense.

It was not long ago that we had several female leaders in positions of global power –Theresa May, Liz Truss, Jacinda Ardern, Angela Merkel, Nicola Sturgeon. Suddenly they are gone. Leadership, all powerful and visible, is behind them, according to media pundits and public opinion. But is it? These determined women, whose image and authority were defined by their professions, have reframed their power. The concept of leadership is ever evolving, and not only in politics. The vocabulary of leadership training courses, where styles are discussed and temperaments analysed, has oft included ‘alpha females or authentic leaders’. Now is the time for female leaders to set their own terms, their own rules. The same applies in education.

There is one universal but unspoken rule that governs our interactions: everybody wants to be understood. We feel powerful and important when someone with authority takes the time to listen to us and deems us worthy of their time. Senior leaders encourage their F other. They love wearing princess dresses – not all, of course, but let us not ignore the plain truth: at that age, most children sing and dance to Disney stories quite unselfconsciously. That is the best model one can hope for older girls, for women. Girls are powerful in their unselfconsciousness; sadly, this changes when, as teenagers, they become conscious of a world that wants to take away their power. How does the girl happily singing Disney songs with her friends become the senior leader apologising for being clumsy as she presents to her peers? It is then, in a context that will even set women against each other, that we need to empower, re-power even, them.