The White House Project President Writes from her Australian Tour

As president of The White House Project, a women’s leadership nonprofit organization, I have traveled extensively around the United States talking to girls and women about the need to make leadership a part of daily life. For awhile, our focus as an organization has been changing the culture in America so that it becomes normal for women to lead. However, in the past several years, I have seen the momentum increase around the world for women’s leadership. Countries like Chile, Liberia, and Germany have elected women leaders for the first time, and other countries like France and South Korea have had or currently have women as serious contenders for the top job. The work of changing the culture so that women can lead has taken on international proportions.

That’s why, when I was invited to speak to young women in Australia about the need for leadership, I knew I needed to go. Australia ranks higher than the U.S. in terms of women’s political representation (thirty three to sixty nine), but Australia has never had a woman president either. So, I decided to tour around the beautiful country of Australia for three weeks to get a feel for the leadership landscape. 

I meet with leading education experts from Asia-Pacific in Melbourne for the Alliance of Girls’ Schools annual conference. They were motivated to bring me here after Beth Blackwood, a leader in the Alliance and head of the Presbyterian Ladies College (PLC), realized that many of the young women at her school could think of no Australian role models, other than the actress Cate Blanchett (and a few women long dead).

In Perth, the first stop of the tour, I spoke to four schools: St. Mary’s Anglican Girls School, Iona Presentation College, Santa Maria College, and Beth’s PLC. All were brimming with energy, talent, and opportunity, a reminder of Alexis De Tocqueville’s take on American women and how they were the strength of the country. The questions were pointed and interesting, and spanned the range from politics in the U.S. to work and life balance.