Courage and Kindness

Prefect Isla reflects on her mother’s motto, “to have courage and be kind” and considers how these qualities shape both personal resilience and the global pursuit of equality for women.

Each week, our students share their insights with their peers in Assembly.

In a previous address, I shared a life lesson from my dad about not taking yourself too seriously and always being able to have a laugh. In honour of our celebrations around International Women’s Day, I’d like to share a motto my mum has instilled in me: “to have courage and be kind”.

As someone who has struggled with significant illness, I have learnt first-hand that courage isn’t the heroic, cinematic thing it is often imagined to be. Instead, it is the decision to keep going, to keep pushing through, even when every part of you wants to give up. To keep believing that things will get better, even when that seems impossible.

Everyone truly is fighting their own great battle, and millions of girls globally face far greater obstacles than our own. Yet, whatever struggle someone is facing, it is nonetheless significant to them, and that is why kindness is so important; most fundamentally, kindness to yourself. As women, life asks a lot of us, arguably more than our male peers, so self-kindness is key in ensuring our minds are a place of rest, rather than another battle.

That’s why our strong Wenona community is so valuable, as girls share their thoughts with courage and are received with kindness.

However, the importance of International Women’s Week extends far beyond the microcosm of Wenona. Our bubble of privileged, independent women unfortunately only represents a minuscule fragment of the four billion women on this earth, whose everyday lives look undeniably different from our own. Over 130 million uneducated girls worldwide wish to see the insides of classrooms like the ones we take for granted.

That’s why, in light of the UN’s International Women’s Day theme ‘Balance the Scales’, we too must play our part. Wenona is already doing this, through service-learning tours, Zonta birthing kits and fundraisers for the Northern Beaches Women’s Shelter, to name a few. We can see the importance of being advocates for change and the tangible effect every one of us can have.

I would also like to make it clear that feminism, despite common preconceptions, is not man-hating. By definition, feminism is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities; the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes, the balance of the scales, so to speak.

I think it is right that as a woman I should be afforded the same respect as a man, and my sense of entitlement to this belief comes as I stand on the shoulders of strong women who fought for it before me, people such as: Malala Yousafzai, Emmeline Pankhurst and Susan B. Anthony. So, while it is unrealistic to instantly expect every woman in every country to share the rights of her male peers, through awareness, courage and kindness, we too can be the change we want to see. As the 35th American president, John F Kennedy said, “a rising tide lifts all boats”. So have courage and be kind.