From the Principal
Dr Nicole Archard
International Women's Day #BreaktheBias
This week we celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD) which is such an important day for acknowledging the impact of discrimination, bias, and stereotypes on girls and women. We know that girls achieve higher educational outcomes than boys in Australia (more girls than boys finish Year 12, more women than men complete a Bachelor’s Degree, more women than men complete a Master’s Degree). However, despite this higher educational achievement there is still a cultural and social underachievement. This is demonstrated through such things as the gender pay gap which is currently 14 percent ($83,050 for men verses $68,220 for women) – before we get excited that this gap has decreased to 14 percent it is good to know that it has oscillated between 14 percent and 20 percent for the last two decades. It is also important to know that when we turn this pay gap into a Total Remuneration pay gap, the percentage increases to 22.8 percent ($113, 241 for men and $87,449 for women). As a direct result of this gender pay gap as well as time out of work when having and raising children, women retire with 42 percent less super than men. Now add to this the impact of divorce and separation, and it’s not hard to see why women aged over 65 are the fastest growing group to be at risk of poverty and homelessness in Australia.
Women are also underrepresented in key decision-making roles across almost all industries in the Australian workforce. While women make up half of the employees in the 2019-20 Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) dataset (50.5%), women comprise only:
- 32.5% of key management positions
- 28.1% of directors
- 18.3% of CEOs
- 14.6% of board chairs.
It is also important to know that the higher the company on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) scale, the smaller these percentages become. Based on the current rates of growth regarding women reaching the top spot of CEO, we will not see an equal share of women until the turn of the next century – that is 80 years away. That’s well past my time, your time, and our daughter’s time, there’s not really even hope for our grandchildren – possibly our great grandchildren or great, great grandchildren might find equity in leadership roles. It’s staggering when you look at it in this timeline.
At Loreto, not only do we focus on ensuring our girls have an understanding of the biases that will impact on them during their lifetime, the single-sex school environment also allows us to focus on breaking gender stereotypes by removing them from the school context e.g.: all leadership positions are held by girls, girls have a greater opportunity to develop their voice and opinions, there are no classes with a gender imbalance such as Physics and Mathematics etc. Everything we do in a girls’ school context is purposeful and directed towards preparing our girls with the self-belief, knowledge, confidence, and skills to continue to break the gender biases that surround them.
Dr Nicole Archard
Principal