Before your read the article that follows, I invite you to click on the link at the end of this sentence and watch a short video with the title Run Like a Girl. Once you have watched it, please continue reading.

I came across an article this week published in the Australian Council for Education Research educational magazine, Teacher Magazine with the title Run like a girl – our influence on children’s dispositions to learning, life, and school. The video you have just watched first aired during the American Superbowl XLIX in 2014. When I watched the video, I felt a mixture of sadness seeing the different people ‘running like a girl’. The stereotypes presented where running like a girl meant ‘flouncing around theatrically, saying things like, ‘Ooh, my hair.’’ I can’t pretend I didn’t have some feelings of anger as I watched the video. By the end I had a smile on my face seeing real girls and one saying “to run like a girl, means running fast!”

While this video was made over a decade ago, I suspect if it were made again today, unfortunately, we may see similar portrayals of what it means to run like a girl. If we extend the theme and asked people to ‘behave like girl’, we might see variations of stereotypes regarding girls and their behaviour.  If this video was made within our St Catherine’s community, I am confident we would see something very different. The footage would be more like the girls we see at the end of the video.

The phrase ‘run like a girl’ can be seen as a metaphor.  We could say run like a St Catherine’s girl or be like a St Catherine’s Girl.  In other words, what are the traits of our girls at the school.  Every day I see girls on the sports fields competing with energy. Most recently our students competed in the GSV athletics finals. What I saw were girls not just from St Catherine’s but from many schools displaying athletic prowess. On display were high levels of skill, strength, speed, endurance and grit. Running like a girl in this context is a meaningless statement. Running like an athlete is what I saw.

It isn’t just in athletic ability or performance where we see bias against girls. In the sphere of leadership all too often women are fighting an uphill battle. While there is some way to go in challenging our societal biases against women, at St Catherine’s, leadership is real and available to all our girls. Recently, we conducted the selection process for our 2026 Student executive. Seven girls were selected from nearly thirty students who put their hand up to serve the community.  These seven aspirant leaders had to prepare a speech and deliver it in front of the Senior School assembly.  This was followed by impromptu questions. Each girl delivered powerful and heartfelt speeches on the topic ‘As a student of St Catherine’s School, what can we learn from our motto, nothing is great unless it is good’.  Each girl spoke with heart, intellect, a strong sense of service and vision for our community. There were no stereotypes of ‘run like a girl’. I saw maturity and leadership and immediately I wondered to myself where will these girls be in 10- or 20-years’ time.

The article ‘run like a girl’ put forward the proposition “as parents, teachers, and members of society, we send countless signals to our children. Whether intended or not, these messages shape their expectations, anxieties, hopes, confidence, and self-doubt. This is not only about gender. Our influence can shape any of our children’s dispositions towards learning, life, and school.”  At St Catherine’s, every day our students receive messages they can lead, they can be strong, they can compete, and they can hold the highest of aspirations and fight to achieve them.