With Emma Watson's amazing UN Speech, women's rights has made it's way front and center in the media recently. It's also been highlighted more in my life, too. As part of a class I'm taking on leadership, a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to interview a leader in our community. I was put in touch with the head of school at a local independent school. We talked about things all across the board, from her career path and how she got to where she is to her role as a woman of power and her suggestions for leaders, both young and old. A quote that stood out to me from her interview was:
"I think there's a certain grit that I would like to see in young women."She was talking about how women desire to be doctors and scientists but when they get into these classes and situations that are finally difficult for them, they leave. They drop out and find easier classes in something they don't love. They don't fight and grit through. Emma Watson said a similar thing :
"I don't want the fear of failure to stop me from doing what I really care about."Both of these successful women have set goals for women to push through the hard times if they're doing what they love. I love physics. In the past three years, not one girl has taken the Physics II class at my school. Right now, in my Physics II class, there are three girls and eight boys. We don't even represent one half of the class! And the three of us ladies came from the same class last year, with an awesome female teacher. Without her encouragement, we probably wouldn't have taken it this year. Everybody asks me and my best friend in the class with me, "why are you taking physics, again? Physics was so hard last year! I hated physics last year!" And we respond, "Because we love it!" They're always so confused.