Blog posts for ‘Careers’ 
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How brilliant and hard it is to be a woman in the 21st century
Monday 4 March 2013
Categories: Careers, Girls' schools, Media Influence, Role Models
I have always rather liked the quote from Madeleine Albright “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women“. These words came into my mind again last week as I caught up on the media spat that has briefly flared over the novelist Hilary Mantel’s comments about the Duchess of Cambridge. I will declare an interest in this matter from the outset: I think Hilary Mantel is a great writer and believe that ‘Wolf Hall’ will stand as one of the finest novels of the 21st...
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Preparing young women for their future lives...
Monday 26 November 2012
Categories: Careers, Education, Letting go, Parenting, Personal Safety, Teenagers
Professor Carrie Paechter from Goldsmiths, University of London addressed the heads of the Girls’ Schools Association at their recent Conference on the subject of ‘Our Girls, Our Future: preparing young women for their future lives’. She talked of the pressures on today’s girls, the (often unhelpful) images of girls we see daily in the media, (including the joyful groups of girls celebrating examination success – more pressure to achieve at the highest levels), and strategies for...
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Not so much a problem but an opportunity!
Friday 5 October 2012
Categories: Careers, Girls' schools, Media Influence, Role Models, Science
Here’s a way for your daughter to get ahead – study Physics. Then she’ll be one of a precious few women with the specialist knowledge and understanding of this fascinating world. In a very few years, there will be employers begging to employ female scientists and physicists.
Why? Because research shows just how few are taking up the subject – in half of the UK’s state co-ed schools not a single girl took A Level physics in 2011. Mind you, the picture is very different in...
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Who does your daughter look up to?
Monday 24 September 2012
Categories: Careers, Media Influence, Role Models
I was very pleased on Thursday night of this week to take part in an ITV Tonight programme about role models for girls and young women, hosted by Penny Marshall: Who does your daughter look up to?. This programme looked at the lack of role models for women, and the evidence that suggests that this absence is damaging aspirations for girls. It was an excellent and thought-provoking programme, and this issue is one of the most important challenges facing girls and young women today if they...
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Education and well-being go together....
Tuesday 10 July 2012
Categories: Careers, Education, Self-esteem
Last week BBC News reported on the results of research by the Office for National Statistics which suggested that people who are better educated are more likely to say that they are satisfied with their lives, and to feel that the things they do are worthwhile.
Among those with A level or higher qualifications, 81% rated their overall satisfaction with life as seven out of ten or more, and 85% felt positive about how worthwhile they felt the things they were doing were. Among those who...
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The importance of having a supportive partner
Monday 18 June 2012
Categories: Careers, Education, Family Relationships, Growing up
Helen Fraser, the Chief Executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust, caused some controversy last week in her speech at the organisation’s annual conference. She said that, as part of girls’ education, we should encourage them to give careful consideration to their choice of life partner, as “if you want children and a career, a partner who shares the load at home really, really matters”.
I couldn’t agree more. As GSA President in 2009 I also caused some debate following an...
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Keeping the entrepreneurial spirit alive
In times of economic downturn governments encourage entrepreneurship. It’s a great way to get people out of unemployment and into the list headed ‘self-employment’. But the truth is, making a success of working for yourself can be exceptionally difficult. Unfortunately, for many, the only difference between self-employment and unemployment is a whole lot of work rather than a whole lot of money.
That’s why it’s vital that schools begin to expose children to the concept of...
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Celebrities as role models?
Monday 21 May 2012
Categories: Careers, Media Influence, Role Models
The Independent recently reported on a survey carried out by Childwise, an independent market research company, for Girlguiding UK into role models and influences on girls of different ages. The newspaper tells us: ‘They look to Cheryl Cole, Katy Perry, Jessie J and Adele for their role models. But few girls can identify any successful businesswomen and most failed to name a single sportswoman,’ and, ‘The survey also found that girls and young women dismiss careers such as...
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Why should girls' schools have to make their case? A riposte to Lord Lucas
Sunday 29 April 2012
Categories: Careers, Girls' schools, Media Influence
If you read today’s Times or Daily Telegraph, you will see headlines that suggest that girls’ schools are a dying breed: “Pull your socks up or you’ll die out, peer tells girls’ schools”; “Girls’ schools ‘going out of fashion’, expert warns” – although the print edition of The Times has the alternative title “Girls’ schools give chauvinist peer a lesson in single-sex education”. Read the articles themselves and you will realise that they contain the opinions – and...
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Why we have too few women leaders...
Monday 2 April 2012
Categories: Careers, Higher Education, Role Models
If you have 17 minutes to spare sometime, do watch this inspiring video of Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, talking about the position of women in the workplace, and think how we are preparing our daughters to face the personal and professional challenges they will meet in the future.
Sheryl bemoans the fact that there are insufficient numbers of women at the top in so many key professions and positions of responsibility. She suggests we need to change this...