The LeadHERship Conference hosted for girls from six of Reading Borough’s secondary schools inspired and empowered the young female delegates last week.
Organised by Leighton Park School and London-based charity, The Female Lead, the event provided opportunities for young women to gain insight and understanding of tackling everyday sexism and gain confidence in managing their own advocacy.
Keynote speaker, author and activist, Laura Bates shared her own experiences of day-to-day misogyny which motivated her to launch the Everyday Sexism Project in 2012 gathering the stories of thousands of women into the largest single dataset of its kind on this issue.
Laura challenged her audience with shocking statistics about the imbalance of power, for example; only 18 of the UK’s 108 High Court Judges are female; only 28% of women have speaking roles in films but are three times more likely to appear with their clothes off; and in the National Gallery, which houses 2,300 works of art, only 27 are by women.
Laura’s premise to was educate the girls, building their confidence and enabling them speak out, developing their understanding of their rights, giving them the language and skills that they can use to challenge inappropriate treatment. Partnering with Laura, was Holly Francis, educator and ambassador for The Female Lead, who explained to the conference how they could launch a Female Lead Society within their own schools.
Leighton Park has been a founding member of The Female Lead since the inception of its schools’ programme and is an enthusiastic supporter of female empowerment in line with the school’s Quaker values of integrity, respect and equality.
Tash Coccia, Senior Assistant Head: Partnerships, explained: “By putting together a conference like today, we’re really giving our young girls the opportunity to collaborate, to be heard and listen to each other and our speaker. It shows them that their voice matters because they’re going to be the changemakers for a more equal and fair society.”
Keynote speaker, Laura Bates, commented: “Hands down the most inspiring thing about today has been the young women I’ve been working with. They’re so passionate, committed, bold, intelligent, brave. And hearing them come up with their own ideas for activist campaigns for how they want to change things and demand an institutional shift.
“Whether it’s from the government, their schools, their male peers; it fills me with hope for the future. With so many local schools coming together, I’ve been able to watch in real time as bonds and relationships are forming. It has been really, really special. Girls are able to learn and draw strength from each other; that sense of solidarity and community. I’ve been seeing how they’ve been, sort of sparking off each other with their unique and different experiences.” Holly Francis, from The Female Lead, agreed, adding: “Having multiple schools here to talk about the same mission the same goals, that’s how we make real change happen, by coming together.”
Jayda (Year 12, Blessed Hugh Farringdon, shared: “Hearing Laura with all the statistics was really quite shocking and made me realise that I’ve almost been a little bit ignorant to sexism and how it happens every day. It’s inspiring that she’s made a website for women to speak out about what they’ve gone through. It’s really nice seeing loads of us from around the area. We all come from different cultural backgrounds and are different ages, both students and teachers. We are all here for the same thing which I think is really cool!”
Sahara (Year 10, Reading Girls’ School) declared: “I found it inspiring how Laura came up and she spoke about her struggles so openly. It showed us that we aren’t alone, that we can always talk to someone and that we can do anything if we put our minds to it. I think it is really inspiring how we’re all in the same room, and whether we have the same struggles or not, it feels like there’s no judgement and we’re all in this together.”
Husnah (Year 10, Maiden Erlegh School in Reading) reflected: “What inspired me today was that I learnt that it wasn’t okay to just not talk about what’s happened to you, in society. And being a female there’s a lot of scary stuff going on in the world”.
Mariam (Year 13, Kendrick School) commented: “I found listening to Laura Bate’s talk very inspiring. She delved into the topics rather than going just surface level. She spoke about a range of topics that are very relevant to today’s society. It feels empowering to see all these girls from different schools and backgrounds. We can all relate to Laura talking about sexism and how it affects all of us.” Shreya (Year 10, The Wren) felt similarly, saying: “We all feel connected in some way as we’re all still growing and learning with how to adapt in society”
Mikayla (Year 10, Leighton Park School) concluded: “I think having a Female Lead Society as part of Leighton Park is important because it gives girls the option to be involved with feminism, campaigning, and figuring out ways to solve problems. And it spreads awareness so that people know how to tackle problems like sexism in the future. Collaborating with other schools today was really fun; I got to meet other people who also had the same interests as me.” Classmate Alex agreed, saying: “I found it helpful to see other views from other schools. It was nice to see new faces with new perspectives on things.”
