A recent post on a feminist and women’s empowerment page I greatly admire and respect quoted Sally Ride, an astronaut, physicist, engineer and the third woman to travel to space in 1983, who said,
“Young girls need to see role models in whatever careers they may choose, just so they can picture themselves doing those jobs someday.“
The post went on to say, “You can’t be what you can’t see”.
This latter phrase itself was coined by Marian Wright Edelman, a 19th century American activist for civil and children’s rights.
We see this expression more frequently as women leaders seek to explain the still low numbers and representation of women across industries and in leadership positions. In Australia, women represent only 34% across all parliaments, only 19.4% of Chief Executive Officer positions and 33% of board Directors, and 6% of executive key management personnel of the top ASX 200 companies. Women are also unrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics); comprising less than 20% of engineering students and less than 15% of the engineering workforce in industry.
There is a plethora of reports, op-eds, and commentary available on-line on the need for women role models. Josefine Olsson (2018), a Strategy Manager within Accenture’s Technology Strategy Practice, argues that the key to a successful career is having access to people you can identify with, that empower and inspire others. Samantha Harrington (2016), the founder of Driven Media, believes that having role models at work is essential for women in all professions, in order to achieve leadership goals.
There is no doubt that we look to the achievements of women across time who have shaped and continue influence progress towards gender equality. A 2019 report by Plan International Australia (PIA) on the power of young women to lead change, reported that 91% of Australian girls and young women said they had a great desire to be a leader to make positive changes for the future, however they were less confident in their abilities to achieve that leadership and looked to “fierce, determined and unapologetic female leaders for inspiration”. The young women surveyed viewed women such as Julia Gillard, Serena Williams, Emma Watson and Malala Yousafzai as “clever, confident, courageous leaders who stand firm in the face of criticism and are determined to drive lasting social change.”
“The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up. Make sure you’re very courageous: be strong…” – Serena Williams, Glamour Magazine, 2015
I don’t want to be seen as minimising the important message Ride was sharing about role models. But strictly speaking, a role model is a person “whose behaviour in a particular role is imitated by others”. However, young women are looking at women leaders for inspiration, not imitation, a carbon copy, or a reproduction. We want women to lead authentically, not try to be someone else. We just need women leaders, of all shapes and sizes, to be visible. And that includes young women who may not see a senior woman in her field or speciality but has the confidence to believe she can achieve her aspirations.
So, I firmly believe that we need to stop perpetuating this saying – “you can’t be what you can’t see” – because it infers that if you can’t see it, you can’t achieve it. If we continue to use this phrase, while seemingly well-intention and aimed at increased women’s representation at all levels, it runs the risk of being destructive and limiting. Young women may feel that if they cannot see the role model in their desired career, they may aspire to less; a life of “imitation, low expectations and constrained imagination”. To avoid this let’s start encouraging girls and young women to think, “you can be what you can’t see”.
I have long advocated this approach. In a 2018 article in a leading Australian newspaper, I characterised my long military career in the Australian Defence Force with many ‘firsts’ in such a male-dominated profession, making the point that women need to step up, take action, and be that first, be that thing they can’t see, particularly in the absence if any role models. I concluded the interview with this: “People often say to young people, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’, and we argue that we need to have role models, for young girls to see that there are women pilots, engineers, and all these other opportunities that exist…On the other hand, I would also say you can be what you can’t see, because as the world evolves, and as workplaces evolve, there’s always going to be firsts.”
This approach was so aptly portrayed in the 2016 movie Hidden Figures, about the three awesome African American women mathematicians – Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan – who, in the early 1960s, helped send the astronaut John Glenn into space. As Champion (2017) said, “[Hidden Figures was] the story of individuals who chose to believe in their talent and their hard work, to push back on a system when they knew it was wrong, not only to advance themselves, but their community, and they did it without the role models we keep telling insisting our children need to succeed. They did it without black female STEM mentors because there were no black female STEM mentors.” The key here is that Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy did it without ‘seeing’ it being done before.
The PIA report goes on to say that “this generation of girls…are clever. They are socially minded. They are strong and unapologetic. They are rising up and taking charge”. If this is the case, then I don’t believe it is the lack of women role models holding these young women back. Rather, girls are held back from being change-agents and leaders because of gendered attitudes and norms of behaviour and patriarchal power structures, which they encounter in their homes, their schools, their communities, in business and in politics. It is well established now that there is a gender pay gap and a lack of representation of women in positions of power in politics, business, and institutions. There are clear inequalities and inequities with women missing out. Contemporary gender equality reports and research show that women are still discriminated against, marginalised, constrained and end up, by and large, occupying lesser roles and lesser positions to their male colleagues. It is gender inequality, with its inherent sexism, violence, discrimination and lack of education and opportunities to lead, which continues to be a major barrier to the realisation of rights and access to opportunities for girls and women in Australia.
So how do we overcome these challenges and afford all young women the opportunity to ‘be what they can’t see’, achieve their full potential, and lead?
Dhall (2016) argues that young people look at what people do, not which gender they are, and that if we are to inspire them, we need our young people to see beyond or past what is there. Dhall cites the example of Sam Kerr, the Australian soccer player who plays for Chelsea and is the current captain of the Australian national women’s team (the Matildas), saying, “Did the utterly brilliant Sam Kerr see women kicking goals for Chelsea (*an English soccer team in the FA Women’s Super League) as a child? There was no competition for her to view. I suspect all that young Sam saw was the football and the goal and had the belief that she could win matches.” Sam was being what she couldn’t see. This means we need to encourage and inspire young women to see beyond that which exists in their workplace or chosen field and take the necessary steps themselves to achieve their full potential.
Dhall further argues that imagination plays a large part in young women’s aspirations. She suggests that young people don’t define themselves by any perceived limitations – such as gender, colour, religion – saying, “When young children are told stories, find heroes, or picture themselves in their imaginary world, they place themselves into the positions they want to take. This is important to reflect on. In the realm of imagination, they fly, they are heroes, they are popular, they are noticed, they are valued, they are the best. They automatically become what they cannot see.” Imagination plays a key role in a new program, Future You, launched in mid-November 2022 by the Federal Government designed to inspire primary school students, especially girls, to consider careers in STEM. The program is story-centric, with resources and career advice packs for teachers, schools and families and is aimed at helping children ‘imagine’ themselves in the roles depicted in the storytelling. So, if the potential to look beyond the realm of possibilities exists already in children, and is encouraged by programs such as Future You, then we need to nurture this in young women as they consider their career opportunities and desired professions.
The PIA also recommended two ways in which young women can gain the confidence they need to take charge of the future they want, particularly in the absence of role models. Firstly, by ensuring that every girl has access to education. If they are educated, supported, and inspired by those around them, they are a powerful force for social change. Through education, we can encourage children to imagine their future selves and aspire to achieve that. Secondly, by giving girls and young woman opportunities to lead and sit at the decision-making table and equipping them with the skills and networks that will unlock their potential. Politicians and business leaders could offer paid summer internships and State and territory governments could invest in young women’s emerging leadership programs and develop school-based programs to empower girls to lead.
An example of the latter is Rio Tinto’s digital careers program that provides access to quality careers advice, training, and work experience opportunities for all Australian students. The program’s goal is to help students reach their career potential by introducing them to a wide range of opportunities in an engaging way. “No student should be limited by their geographics or demographics when it comes to career opportunities,” says Kellie Parker, Rio Tinto Chief Executive Australia. “We want all young people to have access to the best possible education, training and employment pathways. This partnership is aimed at levelling the playing field.” Recognising that career choices can be influenced by school resources, a limited pool of influence (role models), geographic factors and unconscious bias (and other gender-related barriers), this program, in my view, helps students identify, and visualise themselves in, their desired career. Rio Tinto sees this program as a mechanism to increase women’s representation across all levels and disciplines in mining, and in doing so, creates opportunities for girls to become what they can’t see.
Eleanor Roosevelt, a 19th century American political figure, diplomat and civil rights activist and wife of the President of the United States from 1933 to 1945, once said, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” We simply cannot continue to let young women believe that ‘they can’t be what they can’t see’, and that they don’t think they can’t do something just because they don’t see any role models. If this was the case, John Glenn would not have headed into space, Sam Kerr would not be the captain of the Matildas, and I would not have become an internationally recognised gender expert consulting to the United Nations!
If you want to learn more about how ‘you can be what you can’t see’, check out my book, ‘Against the Wind; How women can be their authentic selves in male-dominated professions’ at https://www.
About the Author: Jen Wittwer, CSM, is an international consultant working with UN Women in Ukraine and Jordan on gender mainstreaming in security sector organisations. She was the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) first Gender Adviser to NATO operations in Afghanistan in 2013. Jen also led the implementation of the Australian National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security in the ADF from 2013-16, and she was seconded to the Peace and Security section of UN Women in New York in 2016-18. Jen is a keynote speaker and author, and her passion is mentoring and supporting women to achieve their full potential. More at www.jenniferwittwer.com
The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone and do not represent those of the Department of Defence or the Australian government.