Wednesday’s Spotlight: Mrs Corran
Today we introduce Mrs Corran – Director of Sixth Form and member of the Senior Leadership Team. Managing the day to day running of the Sixth Form, she leads and supports our girls to make exciting decisions for their future, a tremendous role model whom our girls look up to.
Who inspired you to become a strong female leader?
I was lucky enough to be brought up in a way that meant it didn’t occur to me for a long time that women should not or could not be leaders. As I became more aware of sexism in the world, both inadvertent and deliberate, I began to be drawn to a more formal understanding of different strands of feminism. At university, I discovered Mary Wollstonecraft, whose ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ showed me that equality for the sexes has not developed in a straight line from less freedom for women to more. It is too easy to fall into the belief that women have steadily gained more freedom and power over time and that feminism is therefore not needed anymore; this is not true. Freedoms for individual sections of society have come and gone and they will continue to come and go. This means that everyone who wants equality between the sexes should be alert to cultural changes and their possible negative effects on women’s opportunities.
What area would you like to see positive change in?
- I would like women and men to be paid equally for work of equal value. This will mean taking a closer look at what ‘value’ means.
- I would like girls all over the world to have the opportunities for education and self-determination that their brothers have.
- I would like more widespread recognition that gender biases are harmful to men as well as to women.
Which value at Sherborne Girls resonates with you the most?
Curiosity: for me, learning about new ideas helps me to connect my values with the world. I was listening to a radio programme the other day which explained how human knowledge has benefitted from a more diverse community of scientists, including more women, than existed in Darwin’s day. If you would like to listen too, you can find it here: Scientifically: Political Animals: Sex, monkeys and the ‘shy female’ myth https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bqrggt
What piece of advice would you pass on to the future generation of female leaders?
It’s not just good for women and girls for women to have a more equal share in the leadership of our communities and institutions, it’s good for everyone.
