‘Teach girls about careers from age four to combat stereotypes’
GIRLS as young as four should be taught about their future careers to bust the stereotype of what a “woman’s job” is, the head of a girls’ school organisation said today.
Helen Fraser, chief executive of the Girls Day School Trust, said it is important that schools “consciously challenge ” assumptions about which careers girls can go on to do.
Speaking to the Standard before the GDST annual conference in Euston today, Ms Fraser said children should be spoken to about jobs as soon as they start school because they pick up on gender stereotypes from a young age.
She said: “Do a search online for images of chief executives or surgeons or judges and you don’t see many women. Do a similar search for images of nurses or child-minders or personal assistants and it will come as no surprise there aren’t many men to be seen.
“It’s important that we consciously challenge these assumptions from the earliest age. Raising awareness of different jobs at an early age enables girls to imagine themselves in a full range of roles and not limit their horizons too early or too readily.”
The conference is designed to boost the “employability” of girls in the GDST group and will see the launch of a major networking event for students.
Sacha Romanovitch, CEO of Grant Thornton and the first woman to lead a major accountancy firm in the UK, told teachers at the conference that her firm does not just look for good academic grades when hiring new staff.
She said: “It’s all about attitude of mind — that is the element hardest for us to develop and train. We need people who can think — and most importantly can think well with others to create. We don’t want trained monkeys ... we want human beings who can think and connect with others to create value — for our clients and themselves.”