Courage, Equity, and International Women’s Day

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day; a day first recognized on March 19, 1911. Over one million people across Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland gathered to demand women’s rights: the right to vote, to work, to hold public office, and to end discrimination.

 

Over one million people. One hundred and fifteen years ago. That kind of courage feels extraordinary for 1911.

 

My grandmother was born on May 29, 1911, just weeks after that first International Women’s Day. While rallies were happening across Europe, she was entering a world that was still deciding what women were allowed to do.

 

She grew up, earned an honours degree in mathematics from the University of Western Ontario, and became an actuary at London Life – a profession dominated by men. Women were not encouraged into any sort of business at that level. Society’s expectation was clear: work until you marry, then step aside. Many institutions required women to resign once married. She was married in 1936. And she continued to work.

 

She walked through a door that barely existed. Not loudly, but with steady determination. She simply did the work. She did not shrink her ambition to fit someone else’s expectations. That is courage.

 

And while that was happening globally, something else was unfolding right here.

Shawnigan Lake School was founded in 1916, as a boys’ school. For decades, it educated young men who would go on to lead in business, politics, the military, and beyond. And during those early years, Christopher Lonsdale’s sister, Mabel, helped run the School at a time when women were primarily encouraged into teaching and nursing. She didn’t just assist; she helped develop strong programs: French, math and music. She was an accomplished violinist and at the time directed the only orchestra on Vancouver Island. Even then, women were influencing Shawnigan’s future, even if they were not yet students here.

 

And yet, for 70 years, the students walking these grounds were boys.

 

Shawnigan considered co-education twice: in the 1970s and again in the early 1980s. And voices resisted. Change rarely comes quickly, easily. But in 1986, the first female student enrolled here: Renate Grass. And in 1988, Shawnigan officially became coeducational.

 

Groves’ House began in 1927 as the third boarding house at Shawnigan, a boys’ House for 65 years. In 1992, it became a girls’ House. Alumni who return sometimes feel torn between the history they remember and the present they see. But what an extraordinary symbol of progress that a space once reserved for boys now supports generations of young women, and gender-diverse students. That transformation isn’t about losing history; it’s about expanding it.

 

Today, everyone walks the grounds together.

 

That shift; that decision; required courage. It required vision. It required people willing to imagine a stronger school through inclusion. From unity, strength.

 

My grandmother had six children. When her first child was born, continuing to work was strongly discouraged. Like many women in that time, she did not have the option to continue her career once starting a family.

 

My mother was born in 1947, into a world that still had rules, but those rules were beginning to shift. The second wave of feminism was rising. Equal pay conversations were gaining momentum. Women were entering the workforce in greater numbers. My mother worked full-time in a fast-paced, exciting career while raising four children. To me she was incredible, a role model who showed me what dedication, strength and possibility looked like. She kept our home running while pursuing her career, often carrying more than her share in those early years. Over time, something subtle but powerful changed. I watched my dad step in more and more. I saw my dad grocery shopping. Cooking. It was the quiet evolution of shared responsibility. 

 

Equity wasn’t just something being debated in parliaments; it was being practiced in homes. And that influenced me. I was born in 1972. By then, many legal barriers had been removed. I grew up with the message, “You can do anything.”

 

But cultural barriers do not disappear as quickly as laws do.

 

Russ Harris coined the term “the confidence gap”; the space between how capable you actually are and how capable you believe you are. Research consistently shows that men tend to overestimate their abilities, while women frequently underestimate theirs. That gap changes behaviour. It causes people to avoid taking risks. To skip opportunities. To hesitate to speak up.

 

Even preparing to speak here today, I heard that voice. Not fear of standing in front of people; but the quieter thought: does anyone really want to hear from me?

 

That is what the confidence gap sounds like.

 

How many times have you thought:

• “I’m not good at math.”

• “I don’t belong here.”

• “Someone else is more qualified.”

• “Why me and not someone else?”

• “I’m not ready.”

While these thoughts are convincing, they are not fact. They are stories. And if we are not careful, those stories can become barriers just as real as the ones written into law a century ago. Confidence is built through action, not certainty.

 

Courage can be quiet. It looks like raising your hand even when your heart is racing. It looks like applying for the leadership role, even if you’re unsure. It looks like trying out. Speaking up. Showing up.

 

And here at Shawnigan, I see courage every day. I see it in students who have crossed oceans to be here. Who have left home, language, familiarity, and comfort behind. I see it in students navigating identity, belonging, academic pressure, and a culture of comparison in a world that constantly measures and evaluates.

 

Your barriers may not look like my grandmother’s. They may not be written into law. But they are real:

 

• Fear of failure

• Highlight reel comparison

• Academic pressure

• The myth of perfection

 

But history teaches us something powerful: progress is built by people who act before they feel ready.

 

My grandmother walked through a door that barely existed. Shawnigan decided to open its doors wider in 1986. Voices resisted. But vision prevailed. And today, students walk these grounds alongside one another, not as an afterthought, but as leaders, academics, athletes, artists, and changemakers.

 

International Women’s Day is about equity. Equity regardless of how someone identifies. Gender justice includes all of you. Leadership has no pronouns. Strength has no pronouns. And equity benefits everyone.

 

Now I look at my own children. I want my daughters to push through barriers. To try. To apply. To speak. To risk. To understand that confidence is built through action, not certainty.

 

I treat the students I live with in Groves’ as I do my own children. With love, with high expectations and with the belief that they are capable of more than they sometimes see in themselves.

 

I have worked intentionally to raise my son to respect women; to understand that their strength does not diminish his, it strengthens the world he lives in.

 

International Women’s Day is not about elevating one gender above another. It is about equity. It is about widening the table so that everyone can sit and contribute, regardless of how they identify. In the Shawnigan community, removing barriers benefits everyone.

 

And now I look out at all of you. You have stretched yourselves in ways that are invisible to most people. That is courage.

 

Sometimes we imagine courage as something dramatic, loud. A rally of one million people in 1911.

 

But courage can be quiet. It’s the courage to be curious. The courage to risk failure. The courage to stretch beyond what is comfortable. And the courage to try again when things don’t go your way the first time.

 

And here’s the important part: pushing through barriers does not mean pushing each other down.

 

At Groves’, our motto is Ex Unitate Vires: From Unity, Strength.

 

Unity does not mean the same. It means shared commitment. It means celebrating improvements and accomplishments, not just in history, but right here. It means recognizing leaders, the quiet strengths of one another, kindness, academic wins, creative excellence, athletic perseverance. It means when someone says, “I’m not good enough,” we don’t accept that; we challenge that narrative.

 

It means when someone feels they don’t belong, we widen the circle. It means we do not build barriers for each other through a comparison culture.

 

My grandmother walked through a door that barely existed. My mother lived in a world where the doors were widening. I grew up believing the doors were open and learned that sometimes the hardest barriers are internal. And you, you are the generation that gets to decide what happens next.

Progress is real. Women are leading in science, politics, athletics, education, business. That is worth celebrating. So today, celebrate the advancements. Celebrate the accomplishments. Think about how far the world has come since 1911.

 

From each of you, with your stories, your identities, your ambitions, your fears, your brilliance, comes the future. So, let’s not just honour the barriers that were broken. Let’s commit to not building new ones.