Queen’s Gate School Principal Amy Wallace on why we need to teach girls to talk up their achievements, not talk themselves down
“Go on, I dare you.” The 11+ interview candidate pauses for a moment, and then breaks into a smile. In her hands are the gymnastics medals she has brought to show me – our standard starting point to offer our young visitors the chance to begin their interview on familiar ground. I’ve just asked her if she’s good at gymnastics, and she’s given a shy little shrug. Her prep school Head has warned me just how anxious she is feeling – unnecessarily so as the girl is visibly terrified.
“You see,” I’ve just explained, “at Queen’s Gate, we take pride in our successes. We own our achievements. So, if you are good at gymnastics, you should say so”. The girl breaks into a grin and concedes that yes, actually, she is an accomplished gymnast. Nerves dissipate, and the rest of our conversation passes like a dream – smiling, laughing, articulate, confident.
Thanks to writers like Sheryl Sandberg and Mary Ann Sieghart, we are no longer oblivious to the mindsets and resultant behaviours that women unwittingly deploy – to our own detriment. We are familiar with the oft-quoted statistic that a man will apply for a role when he has 60% of the required characteristics, while women hold off until they have 100%. We know how easily women slip into grindstone adjectives (hardworking, committed, diligent) to describe themselves, implying that they succeed through effort rather than ability. Though that is at least a small improvement on ‘I had great mentors’ or, worse still, ‘I was very fortunate’ as responses when complimented on an achievement.
It’s a hard thing to fix. Owning one’s success, declaring one’s capability is but a small step away from bragging, a behaviour we are taught from childhood is undesirable. Though by ‘we’, once again I mean the female of the species. To quote Sieghart: ‘They [men] have been socialised from childhood to blag, to boast, to speak up and self-promote, while girls have been penalised for exactly the same behaviour’.
It’s true that unfettered self-aggrandisement is unappealing. Timing, context, tone, balance – all are crucial. But if we don’t start teaching our young women of the future to start railing against excessive modesty, how can we ever expect them to go off into the world ready to effect the change we wish we had already seen.
At Queen’s Gate, we are tackling this head on by actively encouraging our girls to take pride in their achievements and to feel safe in stating their successes. We talk about this in assembly, referencing moments like Miley Cyrus standing on stage at the Grammies, defiantly challenging the audience with the question “why are you acting like you don’t know this song?”
We apply the same thinking when pupils reflect on their own progress, asking them to identify the steps they have taken that have brought about a positive outcome. We discuss it when speaking with the girls one-on-one, such as with a recent Oxbridge candidate who had listed that her application process would include an interview if she was lucky, rather than because of her own success in the admissions test and her strong academic profile.
We do, of course, remind our girls to apply this principle with caution. As exam papers are returned each year, we ask them to be mindful of those who may not be feeling as buoyant. We insist on being able to laugh at ourselves. We take responsibility for our mistakes just as much as we do our victories.
Our hope is that by promoting these behaviours when our girls are young, they will carry them on into their adult life and continue the fight against the gender inequality that remains so persistent – and so pernicious – in our society. So, to the women reading this, if you are good at something, please say it. Go on, I dare you.
Queen’s Gate School queensgate.org.uk
Further reading: ISL London on the importance of developing leadership qualities
You may also like...
