This week, Nobel scientist Sir Tim Hunt, has publicly apologised for reportedly telling a conference in South Korea that women working in laboratories have a tendency to “cry” in response to criticism and that there is a danger of them “falling in love” with their male colleagues.  Helen Fraser is no stranger to the ups and downs that women experience in the workplace and made the issue of preparing girls for the challenges ahead the central focus for the opening of the annual conference of the Girls’ Day School Trust.“There were lots of careers that, in the 1960s, were ‘not for girls’,” said Helen Fraser, “Girls – or rather women – weren’t fire-fighters or commercial pilots or ambassadors or prime ministers. There were many other roles – such as in science, or politics – where only a small number of notable, indeed exceptional, women made successful careers. But that was then, and this is now. Now, we like to believe that no careers are off-limits to girls. And yet, gender stereotypes still linger, influencing perceptions of many jobs and careers.”Helen Fraser believes that the sort of female stereotypes that have been highlighted by the controversy surrounding Sir Tim Hint’s comments “permeate our national and global culture” and that children “can’t help but subconsciously absorb them.” “It’s important that we consciously challenge these assumptions from the earliest age,” asserts Ms Fraser.New research from the US by Cristian Dezső of the University of Maryland, Robert H Smith School of Business, and David Gaddis Ross and Jose Uribe of Columbia Business School, suggests that women in senior executive positions are unwilling to support other women and have been given the moniker ‘Queen Bee’. But Ms Fraser believes that women who have experienced and benefitted from mentoring and coaching are more willing to support other others. “This is evidenced by our mentoring scheme,” says Ms Fraser, “which saw many of our successful alumnae stepping forward and offering to help other women up the career ladder.”Ms Fraser identifies three key moments in a woman’s life when support from a mentor can be especially worthwhile; in their early 20s when entering the workplace, when navigating the difficulties of balancing family and work, and during the moment when a woman is, “considering throwing her hat in the ring for that big, important, career-defining job or promotion.”And if Ms Fraser could offer her own advice to women and girls, it would be the importance of avoiding perfectionism. “That advice is never more important than when a young woman returns to work after having a baby,” she told the assembled delegates.“Trying to be a perfect working mother (indeed a perfect any kind of mother) is a recipe for disaster – you just have to accept that you will be a bit less than perfect as a parent, as a partner and as a worker. Living with that – and understanding that even if you’re operating at 80 or 90 per cent of your potential, your spouse, employer and baby are very lucky to have you – can be very helpful. And that sort of quiet confidence and sense of your own self-worth is something that every school should really aim to instil, and something that I think single-sex schools like those in the GDST network are particularly good at fostering in their students.”Look out for Mark E Johnson's article about the efforts that education and industry are making to encourage more girls and women to study STEM subjects, in the Summer 2015 issue of Re:locate magazine published in late June.For more Re:locate news and features about education, click here

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