Today’s Daily Mail contains a thoughtful but hard-hitting piece by Janet Street-Porter about the rumours and revelations surrounding the late Jimmy Savile’s alleged sexual activities involving young girls. Whether true or not – and the evidence, it has to be said, appears to be mounting – these reports leave an unsavoury impression not just of …
Category: coding
Sep 26
Live the message, be the message, communicate the message: how to ensure gender equality in the UK
I very much enjoyed my day last Friday at the isbi conference at Woldingham School. As part of the day, I was honoured to be invited to give a keynote address, in which I talked about the importance of communication, and I reflected for a few minutes as I did so on how the message …
Sep 20
We must put more women on screen
The new Director-General of the BBC, George Entwistle, has just gone on record as saying that the BBC has to do more to promote women in “serious” roles, or as newsreaders, in its programmes. In an interview reported in the Daily Mail on Wednesday, he said this: “We have made real progress in actively looking …
Aug 28
The minefield of celebrating female achievement
I came across a fantastic site recently: a list of 22 inspirational female Australian entrepreneurs. You can find the site here; it is a blog attached – slightly anomalously – to a website about credit cards, but this doesn’t detract from the content. Here, you can read some interesting stories, including that of: Gina Rinehart, …
Jun 11
A small victory for Afghan equality
It is so easy to get caught up in day-today issues, and to lose an awareness of what is happening in the world. We take so many of our rights for granted, and we are so quick to challenge perceived injustice, that we can sometimes lose a sense of perspective about how lucky we are, …
May 18
Teach boys to be positive about their identity
A pithy comment piece by Richard Godwin in this week’s Wednesday London Evening Standard, ‘Forget about sexism – we’re all victims now‘ draws its inspiration from Professor David Benatar’s new book ‘The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys’, which looks as though it might be worth a read. In it, according to Richard Godwin, Professor …
May 06
What can we do to promote a culture of kindness in society?
If you read my comments in today’s Mail on Sunday – “Top headmistress says social networking and public rows between celebs are causing a generation of mean girls”, you will see that I am warning against the culture of nastiness that often pervades our online (and real-life) world. Why this is aimed more at women …
Apr 28
Why should girls’ schools have to make their case? A riposte to Lord Lucas
If you read today’s Times or 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 rather more accurate headline “Girls’ …
Apr 13
Miss Wallis and a passion for girls’ education
I have just been reading ‘The Search for Marie Wallis’ by Gerri Nicholas; Miss Marie Wallis was the founding principal of Ascham School, Sydney, Australia, and I shall be following in her footsteps in January 2013, when I become Ascham’s 10th Head in its history. Miss Wallis founded the school in Darling Point in Sydney …