Name: Phoebe Weatherley
Community/State: Scone, New South Wales
School: Scone High School
Age/Grade: 17 Years, Year 11
“Life is a roadtrip with twists and turns. How can we support one another to navigate the road to gender equality?”
Gender equality is an issue that has been around for decades now, and only recently have people started trying for change. Quite often, women are told that they are not suitable for a job title because of the simple fact that they are female. In 2014, there was a study undertaken on the ‘Fortune 1000’ which is a list of the 1000 largest ranking companies in the United States. This research found that only 51 of these companies had a female CEO. This same study was retaken in 2017 and that number grew to 54, and only 3 of those were in the top 50. This means that in 3 whole years, only 3 women rose above the roadblock that is gender equality. That road to success could have been so much easier if women were supported in the same ways that men were. This has to start from a young age, so children see it as a norm. It doesn’t have to be done in a straight forward sort of way, but that knowledge of being able to achieve anything should be embedded into their learning throughout their schooling lives. Small things like encouraging girls to play sports that ‘only boys can play’ and ensuring that boys know that by playing a ‘girly’ sport does not make them any less of a boy will assist with this. There is a way to reach gender equality without it coming across forcefully, because that is not the way it will be achieved. It should be something that is like a second nature to people and not something that they feel they have to go out of their way to do. I believe that to start, learning opportunities that are available to men should be just as openly available for women so they have the same chance to get into the workforce which will allow them to gain experience the same way, this will even the playing field when it comes to applying for jobs and getting them based on knowledge and experience. Gender equality will not be reached over night, and we need to make sure the scales don’t tip back the other way causing the process to start again on the reverse. It may be like grabbing in the dark at first, but if people work together then it will be an achievable goal.