Sydney Girls High School – Annual Presentation Day

Elizabeth Broderick, Sex Discrimination Commissioner

Sydney Girls High School – Annual Presentation Day

Sydney Town Hall

9 December 2014

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Good morning everyone, my very warm thanks to the principal of Sydney Girls High School, Ms Andrea Connell, for inviting me here today to join with you.

I am honoured to join you to deliver an address on the Sydney Girls High School 2014 Presentation Day.

It is indeed a privilege to be invited to speak to you all at such an important time in many of your lives. In my job I get the opportunity to see and be with people of all walks of life, across all parts of Australia. And it is wonderful to be able to include today in my experiences – it is giving the chance to be with an incredibly talented group of young women, who I hope to see in leadership and decision-making positions across Australia in the future – it is incredibly inspiring.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to begin by also acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, their elders past and present, as the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which we meet.

I also once again want to thank Ms Andrea Connell for inviting me to delivering today’s address. Can I also say thank you to Shumi Ruan, for giving me such a wonderful introduction.

I am so inspired when I look at the standard of Girls Schools across Australia, and Sydney Girls High School is one of those schools. I have to pinch myself to believe that I live in a country where many girls (not all) are educated in institutions run by strong feminist principals who believe wholeheartedly in women’s empowerment and the equality of men and women. Unfortunately, this is not the case across much of the world.

Since 1883, your school has greatly contributed to women’s empowerment and gender equality. I believe that this is illustrated in your school’s original charter: that of “support and preparation of talented young women in order that they may proceed to university and take their place beside their male counterparts. Take their place beside their male counterparts.” – as this phrase implies, you are part of a long tradition that has advocated women’s rights and contributed to the ongoing push for gender equality.

While you are graduating into a world that is far different from that of the first students of Sydney Girls High School, with far more opportunities at your fingertips, I urge you to continue the tradition of advocating gender equality, so that your daughters will graduate into a world where not one of them be marginalised for their gender, paid a different wage from their male counterparts, or have a lower chance of becoming a CEO than their male peers.

Let me start by painting a brief personal portrait – I think it helps to know something personally about the speaker as you can put their comments in context. 

Almost 30 years ago, when I was sitting where you are now, I never dreamt that my combined science and law degree would take me from the slaughter houses of the Murray river, to 200 metres underwater in a submarine, to beyond the wire in Afghanistan, to the working with survivors of acid attack in Bangladesh, to the remote aboriginal communities of the Kimberley, the United Nations, the World Bank and the White House – all in the name of my work. But what I did know was that my degree would give me a platform from which to follow my passions, and to be a force for positive change in the world. 

I come from a family of girls.  I have two sisters Jane and Carolyn.  Carolyn is my younger sister and Jane is in fact my identical twin sister.   Jane and I always argued over who was born first.  It was a source of most arguments from about age 2.  It wasn’t until Jane went to get her birth certificate to acquire a new passport that we finally knew.  Beside her name were the words “First Born”!  Of course, I always suspected this to be the case coz she was the bossy one!!

For this reason and because my parents didn’t want us to be the subject of endless comparison, they decided to send us to different schools - even from kindergarten.  So Jane went to MLC and I went to Meriden, two schools in Western Sydney.  With the teachers blissfully unaware, we would regularly dress up in each other’s uniforms and swap schools for the day. 

I remember one year when we swapped schools, I absent-mindedly forgot to tell Jane that it was the day of the big Year 9 Science Exam.  How unkind of me!  I did very well thank you very much, coming third in the class. 

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of my performance at MLC in Jane’s German class.  I had never studied a foreign language before and that class demonstrated to me that neither had she!  Having never spoken a word of German in my entire life but still being able to convince the teacher that I was Jane, demonstrated to me the level of competence Jane had in German.  Fortunately she’s gone into the medical field rather than languages!

My parents ran a small medical business so we grew up involved in my parent’s surgery – as we became older we would pick up patients from the hospital and drive them to the surgery for treatment.

I remember picking up one particular older lady one day.  She asked if I had any brothers.  No I said but 2 sisters. “Oh No! Your poor father. He must be so disappointed. No one to follow in his footsteps.” Well I was completely astounded – I couldn’t believe that people still thought like that. 

When I thought about what I wanted to do at uni – I knew I wanted to do something where I could combine leaders and family.

So I feel very fortunate to have been working as the Sex Discrimination Commissioner for the past six years. And tonight I want to share with you, an idea which encapsulates all that I’ve learnt over this time – whether it’s in the area of women’s leadership, sexual harassment or indeed the military.

I share my idea in the hope that the stories I tell you today might spark thoughts about how each of you can take this idea back into your own sphere of influence – whether it be in the classroom, in your school, in your sport teams, in your future workplace or most importantly into your own relationships and families.

The idea is simple – but it has huge ramifications.

Gender equality cannot occur without commitment from men. This has long been recognised (historical – thousands of years). What has been less well recognised is “what will it take to move men from interest to action?”

I came into my role firmly believing that it was women working together who would drive change – who would create a more equal Australia and all that I had to do was to add my voice and mobilise my networks.

And I want to start by acknowledging, the many successful women in leadership who are already driving change across organisations - influencing policy and programs, setting agendas and signalling possibility to other employees.

But I found that this only addresses part of the problem – and more importantly we haven’t yet seen the level of change that is required to achieve true parity.

In my view a major reason for this is that we haven’t embraced at an emotional level the case for change. By that I mean our gender schema - the deeply held beliefs we have about the role of men and women – about who cares and who works – the thoughts we internalised at a very young age when we first placed our feet on the ground and looked around to understand the place of women and men in the world today – those beliefs clash with the case for change. This makes it difficult for us to accept a new model – a model where leadership is shared equally between men and women.

So to achieve real change we need an array of strategies.  In addition to those that many women are spearheading, we also need to engage men – young men - to achieve gender equality.

As influential young women who will soon embark upon your individual aspirations and make your mark on society and the broader world, you all hold the ability to inspire change and to embolden those around you. Today I want to talk about engaging men – engaging men in the battle for gender equality.  And when I say battle - that was how the Chief of Army saw it when he delivered his 3 minute address to his troops a couple of months ago now. 

You may have seen his speech on YouTube, in which General David Morrison very bluntly and somewhat urgently, informed his soldiers and officers that if they did not see or treat their fellow women colleagues as equal, then they were to “get out”. It’s now had almost 1.5 million views – more than Angry Cat and Miss Memphis!!

Shortly after the video was released David called me to say “What’s so interesting ……”

Well what’s so interesting is that powerful, decent men hardly ever stand up and speak out about violence against women in such a compelling manner.

Powerful, decent men are vital allies in this struggle. When a career soldier looks down the barrel with a steely eye and takes a stand on behalf of women it gives permission to every man to imitate this behaviour without fear of being derided as a SNAG or a metro-sexual.

When the YouTube video was released, my office became a repository for a lot of David Morrison’s fan mail.

We should never underestimate the impact that men have on other men.   

And we should never forget that as women, it is our responsibility to engage men. Particularly in issues which – although perhaps not immediately observable to them –when it is brought to their attention, they can aid in achieving very decisive action.

Another story I want to share with you is my fortunate experience working with a group of inspiring Yr 11 boys over the last couple of years. They had spent time examining the issue of gender equality and presented to over 1000 boys in their school and a number of other schools about why gender equality needed to be everyone’s issue. The Sydney Boys High School High Resolve Gender Equality project is now online, and I encourage you all to take the time to watch it.

I arranged for them to meet a number of members of the Male Champions of Change (MCC), a group of powerful men from the corporate, government and military sectors who I have been working with to advance gender equality.  I created the Male Champions of Change group 2 years ago, once again recognising that powerful men acting collectively to campaign for change would be an effective strategy.

The Male Champions of Change invited the young men to be part of the launch. The boys were inspired by the commitment of older men to creating a more gender equal world.  They came together with girls to challenge gender stereotypes and to observe – “This is our world / not just a male world or a female world” – “it’s our world, our choice.”

The boys then went on to take their message to an international conference at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Their presentation showed how young people, especially men, could be a part of the solution to the global issue of gender inequality.

So in a nutshell, to deliver equality for women we have to focus on men. 

The vexed question I think is “what will take to get men from interest to action”.  Because as we all know, the path to gender equality is paved with good intentions.

My strong belief is that if we want to take men from interest to action, we need to engage men’s head and heart. You all have the capacity to do this, and as you move through your education and beyond into the workforce, I urge you to remember that every time you are studying or working with male colleagues, peers, team members or bosses, you have an opportunity to move them to action, and contribute to the international movement towards gender equality.

When I look back – the work in military is some of the work I am most proud of; the work that reinforced for me that when you work with men to engage both their head and heart even in the most traditional and conservative organisations, transformational change happens. 

As I travelled around the bases - many women spoke so positively about the ADF – how they had developed a very rewarding career, how they were always treated with dignity and respect.

On occasion though, women recounted stories of extreme exclusion, of harassment, of bullying, of victimisation and of sexual assault. For many of these women, lodging a complaint was not an option.

These experiences do not represent by any means all of the ADF, but it is important to acknowledge that these incidents do happen on occasion across the Services. They are not just a thing of the past or a historic phenomenon. They are contemporary.

We heard of stalking, the dissemination by phone of sexually explicit images without the consent of the woman involved and persecution and intimidation by groups of men against women whose only crime was to be the only female in the group.

Probably the most distressing part we heard was how women who had experienced these issues felt they couldn’t speak out about them.

These stories illustrated to us that there still exists in some areas, instances of exclusion and instances of harassment and violence against women.  In certain areas there is also a culture of silence – one that disempowers people and prevents them coming forward to report or seek support.

And not only that, our overriding finding in this area is clear -   gender based harassment and violence ruins lives, divides institutions and damages operational effectiveness.  And that goes for all organisations in our society, not just the ADF.

But encouragingly I have started to see real change in the ADF over the last 12 months, particularly in terms of people being able to safely report these issues and be better supported when they do.

These changes are really ground breaking. By bringing this issue out in the open, by enabling people to freely report sexual misconduct, we are starting to see the culture of silence evaporate.  This is critical, because once people start talking about these issues then we can start to address them openly.

An incredibly important aspect of addressing unacceptable behaviour, particularly sexual harassment, is to empower “bystanders’ – that is the people who see or hear about the harassment.

Let me give you an example, in 2012 we undertook a survey of the prevalence of sexual harassment in both the general Australian population, and then a comparative survey in the Australian Defence Force.  We found that the levels of sexual harassment were equivalent across both – at around 1 in 5 women.  What it shows us is that there are high levels of sexual harassment across all organisations, across all sectors.

But what we also measured was what level of bystander action taken.  We found that in the general Australian population, 51% of bystanders, people who had witnessed or learnt about the sexual harassment of another person took some action.  The kind of action included talking or listening to the person who was harassed, offering advice, reporting the incident, and in some instance confronting the harasser.

So in the work that I have done, both within the military and across a broad range of workplaces, I have realised the importance of empowering bystanders. The research shows that before a bystander will act they need to be sure of 3 things – 1. Zero tolerance 2. No victimisation 3. Action will be taken.

There can be any amount of rules and legislation in place prohibiting certain kinds of behaviour and action, but the starting point for prevention is ourselves - our own attitudes and behaviours. As I like to say “human rights starts at home”. Just as we have rights we also have responsibilities. And our responsibility is to protect the rights of others.

I want to finish by sharing some of the key lessons of leadership I have found. I hope you can take these lessons with you in the remainder of your time here at Sydney Girls High School, and beyond.

My first point about leadership is that “you are what you do not what you say”.  This is particularly the case when navigating the balance between work and life.  Remember your work does not equal your life. 

As Justice George Palmer said in an excellent speech to the NSW Young Lawyers several years ago on the topic of work/life balance - “work” and “life” are not separate things.  “Work is a part of your life and your life informs your work.  That is true irrespective of the job you will hold - whether you are a philosopher or a street-sweeper.”  As he pointed out “There are happy street-sweepers and miserable philosophers – the job doesn’t necessarily dictate the quality of life.”  I couldn’t agree more. However one of the factors that may influence the quality of your life is your ability to be engaged in both meaningful and paid work while at the same time maintaining the family relationships and community connections that are going to sustain you.  Both are important.

My second point about leadership is the importance of self-awareness - It’s the most important tool of leadership, you take with you – self-awareness – that understanding of who you are and what it is that you want to do with your life.

I combined my arts degree with a law degree but early on I made a decision to step away from black letter law to focus on the social sciences. I remember people saying to me “But you’re wasting your law degree – don’t you want to be a real lawyer?  And I must say I agonised over that decision.

But self-awareness is an important asset – I knew I wanted a career where I could be creative, where I might contribute to our shared humanity through service, where I connected with those who were not able to access the same opportunities I had and where my work had meaning. 

When you have a strong sense of self, making decisions becomes easier.  You feel empowered to push back when your boss might ask you to do another all-nighter and it’s your mother’s birthday, when you are regularly asked to work another weekend and you feel you’re losing touch with your family and friends.  Being clear about your priorities makes this much easier.

My third point about leadership is about role models. You will meet people from all walks of life and experience bosses who are good and bad. All of these people are role models you can learn from.  As the CEO of the NYSE recently said “Every boss is a role model so please don’t think if you end up with a bad boss, you can’t learn something. You can learn a lot even if it’s about what not to be.”  Everyone teaches you something.

My fourth and final piece of advice is that it is the connections with your fellow students – through high school or university, your friends and family, and the activities that interest you outside work that will continue to inform the work you will do.

It was my interest in supporting women that lead to my appointment as the Sex Discrimination Commissioner and it was my interest in the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that first took me to the United Nations.  Neither of these things were part of my early career but these interests helped me forge the next stage.

Each of you will have great opportunities. These opportunities will bring challenges, personal and professional. You will be called upon to stand up, to make hard decisions and sometimes unpopular ones. To do so you will need judgment - which self-awareness, experience and humility will teach. You will also need courage - deep courage.  This you do not learn, this you must find.

Thank you.