PRINCIPAL REPORT

From the College Principal

Dear Parents, Students and Friends,

You may already be aware that Monday the 8th of March is International Women’s Day. 

I want to acknowledge that women, in Australia and around the world, continue to experience prejudice, discrimination and abuse based solely on their gender. Examples of this range from the gender pay gap that still exists in Australia, to the horrific fact that, in our nation, one woman a week, on average, dies from domestic violence.

Putting politics and perceptions to one side, the recent events in Canberra should, at the very least, cause us to pause and think about the place, treatment, expectations of, and portrayal of women in our society. 

We are committed to offering every student who identifies as female at school the same opportunities as other students. We believe opportunity should be blind to all protected attributes, including gender. We believe opportunity should be based on merit, rather than suppositions based on gender. We are proud of the fact that our College Captains, for example, were chosen on merit. Their capacity to perform the duties of the role were evaluated without reference to their gender. This is why our two College Captains and International captain are all girls: they were the best candidates for those positions.

I recommend to you the speech made by the 2021 Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, at the National Press Club this week. It was powerful, passionate and thought-provoking, and addressed some of the issues around gender and power in our society. A warning: Grace’s story is confronting, and parents may wish to preview it before younger members of our school community view it. The link to her speech is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJmwOTfjn9U&ab_channel=ABCNews%28Australia%29

The school is continuing to make changes so that our values are reflected in what we do. The inclusion of two trailblazing women in our House names, Vida Goldstein and Molly Brennan, is a symbol of our commitment to gender equality. We look forward to continuing this work.

Yours sincerely, 

Richard Minack 

Principal