The White House Project

Thank you for attending the Women and National Security Conference on June 22nd in Washington D.C. Both The White House Project and Americans for Informed Democracy are excited about your insights and innovations. We would like to take this opportunity to invite you to share your brilliant ideas with our online communities.

1. 1. What was the most inspiring part of the conference?
2. 2. What is the most important thing that you learned?

At one of my final speaking engagements in Australia, I asked the 10th-year girls of St. Aidan’s in Brisbane what was holding them back from taking leadership on issues they cared about. A girl raised her hand but didn’t directly answer the question. She spoke instead of wanting to raise and donate money to important causes. Finally, after my probing about why she didn’t just do it, she said, “What if I fail?”

A collective murmur of agreement became a roar of “YES!” when I asked the 200 girls if that would be true of them as well. I then asked these sports-minded girls if they walked off a field when they missed a goal. Of course, they said no. Failure as part of a team is one thing, I came to realize, but personal failure for these girls is quite another.

I told them about a mentor of mine who said, “People who don’t want to fail shouldn’t get up in the morning.” I talked of the many failures hidden behind each success we achieve. A vice principal chimed in, and we both agreed that we had learned more through our failures than through our successes. The girls, I fear, came away unconvinced. They are high achievers, and they are heavily invested in success.

Interestingly, at the Alliance of Girls’ Schools conference dinner, amid the relics of Australian history at the Melbourne Museum, the guest speaker touched on just this issue with girls, wrought from her own experience in girls’ schools. There was a young Cambodian woman with us, Alice Pung, who had written a book called “Unpolished Gem,” a story of her struggle for success and the role played in it by failure. She is now a solicitor (lawyer), and she gave a brilliant and moving speech about her struggles in an immigrant family and her struggles with difference in her schools – her isolation and depression, the pressures of family and academics, and finally her breakdown.

This young woman speaks widely now, talking to schools about failure because she understands intimately how it is an unaddressed issue for girls. Sadly, at one school, a principal upbraided her for “encouraging failure” by talking about it. She told the principal that failure needed no help from her.

The courage of this young solicitor, to speak frankly and often, and to encourage young girls to take risks because she is the embodiment of failure and survival, was quite moving. Everywhere I spoke, I discussed encouragement and the courage embodied in that word, but I hadn’t realized how failure lives so close to the surface in our boldest and smartest girls. Their schools, their privilege and their families prepare them for success, but their resilience has not been tested — they may avoid taking the hardest courses, they may not persist through adversity, and they may not be pushed to prove they can fail, survive and even thrive.

The last of my 21 presentations – to hundreds of girls, faculty and parents throughout Australia – was to a group of staff and parents at Our Lady of Mercy College (a high school) in Parramatta, which is a suburb of Sydney. I spoke to them of risk, fear and failure, thanks in large part to what I learned in Brisbane and backed up by the young solicitor’s speech. If I had it to do over again, I would speak of this everywhere, and first.

I have learned so much from the girls of Australia, not the least of which is that The White House Project message and mission are the right ones in this world. It spoke to them deeply, as it has to young women in America. Females, young and old, foreign or domestic, are truly trying to live by the old English definition of courage: “To speak your mind by telling all your heart.” If we listen, we will get all the encouragement we need.

I gave the keynote address at the annual Alliance of Girls’ Schools conference in Melbourne, where the principals met to talk primarily about leadership. As a part of their process, they invited a dozen girls from six different schools across the city to participate in their sessions. They had the girls read “Closing the Leadership Gap” and meet throughout the weekend to discuss what they’d heard and to figure out ways to act on the messages. Their recommendations to the adult leaders were pointed and interesting:

1. Invite more girls to lead — too often the same girls (in fact, girls like themselves) are chosen to lead while others with potential don’t feel the same encouragement. Girls have a keen sense of justice, wherever they live, and these girls in particular really picked up on the need for invitation to leadership. Clearly, they want to lift as they rise.

3. More access to women leaders — The girls validated the practice of bringing alums back to the school to talk, but not just at assembly speeches about the paths to power. They want their schools to give them the opportunity to interact with women leaders, which leads to #3…

3. Set up mentoring programs — This could be email, or perhaps one-on-one meetings every now and again — but these girls were very clear about the need for concrete exposure to women in business and politics so they can replicate their leadership.

4. Politics and the need to know much, much more — Seems that even though education in civics is a part of curriculum, these girls (like their sisters in the states) say they know very little about the nuts and bolts of entering politics. Just as American girls told us in our “Pipeline to Power” study, the Australian girls need the process demystified.

5. Critical thinking in regards to the media — The girls deeply understood the need for women to be seen and heard in media, and the need for the girls themselves to develop skills in critical thinking so they can be more skeptical about what they read and hear.

Though the girls didn’t know each other before their visit to the conference, they are determined to form an alliance among themselves and to push their agenda. In fact, they expressed keen interest in coming to America to participate in our “Go Run” training. Perhaps an Australian sponsor could be found to fund their aspiration. Most fascinating of all: I am halfway around the world and yet I hear our strategies and messages resonate very strongly. These young women want a connection to democracy far beyond what they see in adults, and I truly believe they have a chance to reshape their homeland.

I am again finding meaning in Marian Wright Edelman’s famous quote, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” In a survey of junior and senior high school girls, prepared by Seymour College (a high school) in Adelaide in advance of my arrival, almost no one could name role models among Australian women leaders. As a matter of fact, the big winners were Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa. The only consistent mention of Australian women was the head of the school itself and Princess Mary, an Australian who married the Prince of Denmark. This was consistent with another question asked on the survey: What are the most important issues facing young girls today? You will recognize the obvious similarities in their answers to our own kids: Unrealistic body images and appearance, peer pressure and self-esteem, fitting in, impressing boys, and girls not “standing together.” The older girls also added issues of concern about their future jobs and careers, combining work and family, and male dominance in the work force. Indeed, they have reason to be worried.

Leadership is very much a part of the curriculum within girls’ schools here, but leading after school is not on the radar screen. In audiences of 300-plus girls, only a handful raised their hands when I asked if they ever considered politics. Similar to girls and young women in America, mostly they see men in these positions and don’t even know how you crack the code to lead alongside them. It doesn’t help that politics in Australia is more rough and tumble, much more similar to the British model than to our own.

Girls just don’t seem to want to go there; as my hosts in Brisbane said, the press is vicious and girls don’t want to expose themselves to it. The parties here don’t promote women’s leadership either, so it’s a double hit. Women here are 28% of Parliament, which isn’t a bad number, but very few of them are in positions that will lead to power.

Here in Brisbane, I had a fascinating breakfast with women in business, politics and other areas, in association with St. Aidan’s School, my gracious host here. They are well aware of the issues facing their well-educated daughters, as they themselves faced them. While their girls have more choices today than these women had at a similar age, any choice demands sacrifice — it is the choiceless choice described my Mary Catherine Bateson. Girls still have issues around voice and confidence, around saying what they think and acting on it, and around discrimination in jobs. Women are only 3% of CEOs in Australia, which is a very narrow window in which to succeed.

The Alliance of Girls Schools here is truly trying to change this dynamic, aiming to give girls the knowledge, confidence and ability to overcome deficits in this society. The White House Project’s messages about the importance of women in positions of power being seen and heard are resonating powerfully here. In fact, I suggested the schools conduct research similar to our own; perhaps they could do a survey of women leaders who appear on television shows and they could analyze how women are covered in the press. Here, it seems to be very much about hair, hemlines and husbands. Much change is needed before girls can see and be seen.

The New York Post revealed today that Dan Rather characterized Katie Couric on CBS Evening news, his old show, as “dumbing it down, tarting it up.” In an appearance on MSNBC yesterday morning, he said, “…I think it has become even clearer that the mistake was to try to bring the ‘Today’ ethos to the evening news and to dumb it down, tart it up, in hopes of attracting a younger audience.” Read the piece here.

We’ve been talking about the impossible expectations put upon Couric since she was first tapped to be the first female evening news anchor. Now, one of her male counterparts has publicly insulted the show Couric anchors. Do you watch the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric? What do you think of Ms. Couric, the first female evening news anchor? How did you react to Dan Rather’s comments?

Good morning from Australia.  It has been a whirlwind of speaking engagements since I arrived here as a guest of the Alliance of Girls’ Schools.  They were motivated to bring me here after Beth Blackwood, a leader in the Alliance and head of the Presbyterian Ladies College (PLC), realized that many of the young women at her school could think of no Australian role models, other than the actress Cate Blanchett (and a few women long dead).

In Perth, the first stop of the tour, I spoke to four schools: St. Mary’s Anglican Girls School, Iona Presentation College, Santa Maria College and Beth’s PLC.  All were brimming with energy, talent and opportunity, a reminder of Alexis De Tocqueville’s take on American women and how they were the strength of the country.  The questions were pointed and interesting, and spanned the range from politics in the U.S. to work/life balance.   

I am finding that the Australian culture is even tougher than our own when it comes to women and that balance, as there is a push here toward motherhood rather than work outside the home.  The media here is even tougher on women in public life, and the girls know it.  I think they understand that only the strong survive. 

At Santa Maria College especially, I was stunned by the knowledge of and interest in U.S. politics by the 200 senior level girls to whom I spoke.  It might have bested any American school.   

At each stop, young women wanted to know how we could bring The White House Project here.  Any takers out there?

Next up: Adelaide.  Last night, before retiring, I read some of the questionnaires filled out by the young women in advance of my visit.  Fascinating who they admire, and what they expect.  But more on that tomorrow, stay tuned.  

Marie

Next week our President, Marie Wilson, heads to Australia for a national speaking tour of girls schools around the country.

Marie will speak to young women, their parents and local leaders about changing the perceptions of women as leaders within culture, particularly in politics.

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Follow The White House Project on this international tour as Marie posts during her visit on our Change Everything blog.

Click here for our interactive map below to learn more about the schools and regions she’ll be visiting through out the country.