Who Taught Girls to Ask for Permission?

What girls learn about leadership before they are ever taught to lead

When a girl is born, in some cultures, it is not exactly the most auspicious occasion. Call it perception, generational mentality or cultural mindset. That first-born girl carries the weight to perform harder, achieve more and seek validation through her accomplishments — because she simply wasn't a boy.

I grew up trying to be the best, seeking that validation repeatedly. In school, I learnt to read, calculate, investigate, question and solve problems, and my achievements were quietly celebrated. Yet I didn't quite understand why I had to fight to be seen as equally valuable as the boy next to me — my brother.

But could I say anything? Could I express how exactly I felt?

Alongside the formal curriculum I was excelling in, another quiet curriculum was operating. The one that teaches children when to speak, when to listen, how much space to occupy, how to respond to authority, whether disagreement is acceptable, what confidence looks like and, perhaps most importantly, who they believe is entitled to lead.

The question I keep coming back to is simple: who taught girls to ask for permission?

Perhaps we are looking too late when we ask why there are not enough women in leadership. By the time a woman reaches the workplace, applies for a leadership position or begins questioning the expectations placed upon her, she may already have spent years absorbing messages about who she is supposed to be.

My previous writing on women's empowerment explored what happens when women begin to recognise and question the expectations they have internalised. This article takes that conversation one step earlier.

What if some of the expectations that shape women begin in childhood? And what role does education play in either reinforcing them or giving children the agency to question them?

The curriculum we teach — and the curriculum children experience

There are, perhaps, two sides to the curriculum. The visible curriculum is the one we recognise. We plan it, teach it, assess it and review it. We know what we want children to learn and, hopefully, why we want them to learn it.

But what about the invisible curriculum?

What is it, and how does something that is rarely explicitly taught become something that feels natural, familiar and eventually adopted as behaviour?

The invisible curriculum exists in the everyday interactions children experience. It is in who is encouraged to speak, who is given responsibility, whose ideas are taken seriously, who is praised for being well-behaved, who is encouraged to take risks and whose mistakes are treated as opportunities to learn.

It can exist in a teacher's response to a child who challenges an idea, in the language we use to describe behaviour and in the opportunities we give pupils to make decisions for themselves.

None of these interactions, taken individually, necessarily tells a child what they should or should not be.

But perhaps that is precisely why the invisible curriculum can be so powerful.

It is not usually a defining lesson. It is the accumulation of small messages, repeated over time, until what was once external begins to feel internal.

A child may not consciously think, I should speak less because I am a girl.

It may be much subtler.

She may notice who is interrupted and who is listened to. She may notice who is described as confident and who is described as difficult. She may notice who is trusted to lead, who is expected to help and who is forgiven for taking risks.

Over time, these observations can contribute to a developing understanding of what is expected, acceptable and possible.

The OECD's work on gender stereotypes in education reminds us that children encounter gender stereotypes from an early age, and that parents, teachers, peers and school environments can all contribute to the development of gender identities and expectations. This matters because gender expectations do not suddenly appear when a young woman enters the workplace. They can develop much earlier, through repeated interactions and observations that communicate, sometimes without words, what children believe is expected of them.

And this is where the invisible curriculum becomes particularly interesting.

At what point does an expectation stop feeling like an expectation and start feeling like who we are?

Perhaps that is how the invisible curriculum works. It does not necessarily instruct us directly. It gives us repeated evidence about what is rewarded, what is tolerated, what is questioned and what is considered normal. Eventually, we may no longer need anyone to tell us.

We begin to tell ourselves.

External expectation becomes an internal voice; what was once something imposed from outside can begin to feel like our own choice. We learn to regulate ourselves, to adjust our behaviour, to decide when to speak, when to remain silent, when to step forward and when to step back.

And perhaps that is where the invisible curriculum becomes most powerful.

It can become the foundation upon which many of the choices we make later are built — professionally and personally. The careers we pursue, the opportunities we put ourselves forward for, the risks we take, the boundaries we set and even the space we believe we are entitled to occupy can all be influenced by what we have gradually come to see as normal.

We should therefore ask not only whether schools are teaching girls to lead, but what schools may be teaching children about leadership without ever putting leadership on the timetable.

The "good girl" effect

As a girl, you are taught to be kind, responsible, considerate, collaborative and hardworking. These are qualities we should value in every child.

The difficulty arises when those qualities become subtly gendered — when being the "good girl" means being agreeable, accommodating and easy to accept.

I was a good girl if I abided by these expectations. And perhaps what began in childhood did not simply disappear as I grew older. Even as a woman, the expectation placed on me was that these qualities were closely tied to acceptance and validation — within my family, my community and, at times, even in the workplace.

Saying no was not part of the invisible curriculum.

And perhaps learning to say no is not as simple as finding the confidence to speak. Being able to say no can come with an emotional and social cost. We may fear disappointing others, being perceived as difficult, selfish, ungrateful or confrontational. So we learn to soften it, justify it, delay it — or sometimes, simply say yes.

But why was being a good girl always more important than being a leader of my own life?

What happens when a girl who has learned that being agreeable is valued discovers that leadership sometimes requires disagreement?

What happens when the behaviour that once earned acceptance becomes the very behaviour that can prevent her from asserting herself?

Perhaps this is where the invisible curriculum follows us into adulthood. We may leave the classroom, but we do not necessarily leave behind everything we learned about how we are expected to behave.

As an aspiring leader

As an aspiring leader, I struggled with this myself. I had the knowledge, the experience and the skills, but I struggled to make my voice heard.

It was not that I had nothing to say. I was often afraid of saying the wrong thing, being rejected or being perceived as difficult. I had become used to being quiet, agreeable and careful when I spoke.

Over time, I realised that this was not a lack of ability.

It was something I had learnt.

I had spent years understanding that being a "good girl" meant listening, cooperating, working hard and not creating unnecessary conflict. These are valuable qualities. But when being agreeable becomes more important than being heard, it can become difficult to know when to speak up, challenge an idea or simply say, "I disagree."

Leadership made me confront that.

I did not need to become a different person to lead. I needed to understand that my voice had value, even when it challenged, disagreed or took up space.

And that brings me to another question: what does a leader actually look like?

What does a leader look like?

A beehive of questions invaded my brain. I knew what I had to be; I just didn't know how to be it. In fact, my first experiences of leadership caused me a level of anxiety because I didn't know how to make myself heard in a room. I was an outstanding teacher, with the capability to lead and years of experience and knowledge accumulated behind me.

So why was it so difficult to become someone in those rooms? It cost me to be that way.

And then there was the inevitable impostor syndrome. Was I good enough? Did I belong here? Did I have something valuable to contribute? Should I speak? Should I wait?

But perhaps I was asking the wrong question.

What have we decided leadership is supposed to look like?

If authority, decisiveness, assertiveness and confidence are traditionally associated with masculine behaviours, while empathy, collaboration and care are more readily associated with feminine ones, then perhaps we have created a narrow definition of leadership before we have even asked who is capable of it.

This matters because we should not respond to gender inequality by simply teaching girls to imitate a traditional model of leadership. The answer cannot be to tell girls to become louder, harder or more assertive so that they can fit comfortably into spaces that were not necessarily designed with them in mind.

Perhaps we need to broaden our understanding of what leadership can look like.

Leadership can be decisive and empathetic; it can involve challenge and collaboration. It can require confidence, but it can also involve listening, reflection and care.

The goal should not be to make girls fit a narrow definition of leadership.

How do we ensure that leadership itself makes room for them?

Confidence is not enough

For a while, I questioned whether this was simply a question of confidence. Surely confidence comes from getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks and doing the things that make you uncomfortable.

But what did I learn?

Confidence isn't enough.

A girl can be told to be confident, but confidence is also shaped by experience.

A child who is trusted with responsibility, given the opportunity to make decisions, supported when something goes wrong and encouraged to try again gathers evidence about her own capability.

She begins to understand:

I can do this. My decisions matter. Failure is learning.

That is very different from simply being told to believe in herself.

Research into adolescent girls' leadership self-efficacy similarly highlights the importance of leadership experiences, role models, social encouragement and opportunities to develop mastery.

This creates an important distinction for schools.

Telling girls they can lead is not the same as giving them opportunities to lead.

Voice is not the same as agency

Having a voice isn't enough if no one is listening to you.

And having a voice and having agency are not the same thing; a voice allows you to speak. Agency gives you the opportunity to influence what happens because you spoke.

Agency requires something more. It means having opportunities to make decisions, influence outcomes and understand that your actions can have consequences. Perhaps that is the distinction we sometimes miss when we talk about empowering girls.

We tell them to find their voice, but do we give them enough opportunities to experience the influence that comes from using it? Because leadership isn't simply about having something to say.

It is about having the agency to do something with what you say.

Culture matters — but culture is not destiny

For a long period of my life, I believed that being a good woman — whether at home or outside it — meant abiding by cultural expectations and not questioning them.

If you had questions, they stayed within the four walls of your home.

But my question now is this: if, as a mother, I was able to break that cycle, then from the perspective of an educational leader, can education give children enough agency to examine the expectations they inherit?

I want to be careful here. The problem is not culture.

Culture gives us belonging. It gives us identity, values, traditions and a sense of where we come from. It can shape how we understand family, responsibility, relationships and leadership.

The problem begins when an expectation becomes so deeply embedded that we stop recognising it as an expectation.

And with that, perhaps most importantly, we no longer recognise the difference between choosing something and complying with something we have been taught to accept.

That distinction has taken me a long time to understand.

For a long time, I believed that feeling empowered meant feeling validated and accepted within my family, my community and the circles around me.

I now see it differently.

Your environment can influence whether you flourish to your full potential or whether your agency becomes limited by what you have been taught to accept.

Culture matters. Indeed, it shapes us. But culture is not destiny.

Perhaps the role of education is not to ask children to reject the culture they come from, but to give them enough agency to examine the expectations within it.

What do you believe? Why do you believe it? Can you question it while still respecting where you come from?

That, I think, is a much more useful understanding of empowerment — particularly in international education, where children bring with them different cultural values, family expectations and understandings of authority and leadership.

The goal should not be agency against culture, but agency within culture.

You cannot be what you cannot see — but seeing is not enough

Role models matter. When girls see women occupying positions of authority, making decisions and influencing change, leadership becomes more visible — and therefore more imaginable.

But being a mother of four made this question deeply personal for me. I understood earlier than I perhaps wanted to that I could not allow the same pattern to repeat itself. I failed many times to speak up. I allowed cultural expectations to influence what I believed I could and could not do. There was always an internal battle taking place:

How could I free myself from the shackles of what I believed I must be?

For a long time, I blamed others. But eventually, I had to acknowledge that I was also part of the problem.

I had lost my sense of self. I had fitted myself into a mould because I believed acceptance came from not disappointing others. I had learnt to be agreeable, to accommodate and to remain quiet.

At home, I questioned whether I was truly leading as a mother. Professionally, whether I agreed or disagreed, I often lacked the presence — and the courage — to make my influence felt.

Then, at 48, I decided something had to change. My children needed to see their mum as a leader; a different type of leader. Not a perfect leader, but a woman making a difficult decision, a woman disagreeing respectfully, making mistakes, setting boundaries.

A woman changing her mind and able to say no. A woman leading without having to become someone else to be taken seriously.

That became a different understanding of representation for me.

It is not simply about seeing a woman in a position of authority.

It is about seeing what leadership looks like — including the uncertainty, the mistakes, the disagreement, the boundaries and the courage it sometimes requires.

Representation makes leadership visible. Experience makes it imaginable. Agency makes it possible.

So, what role do schools play?

If leadership begins earlier than we think, then schools have an important role to play. Not simply through formal leadership programmes, but through the everyday experiences children have.

• Who gets heard?
• Who gets responsibility?
• Who is allowed to make mistakes?
• What happens when a girl disagrees?
• Who is described as confident, and who is described as difficult?

These moments may seem small, but they teach children what leadership looks like — and whether they believe it is something they can do.

Perhaps the question is not only whether schools are teaching children to lead, but what they are teaching them about leadership without ever putting it on the timetable.

When does leadership begin then?

Is it when you have accumulated experiences, knowledge and wisdom, and are old enough to lead? I believe it begins much earlier.

It begins when a child learns whether speaking up is valued. When a pupil discovers whether making mistakes is safe. It grows when a teenager begins to decide whether leadership is something someone like her can aspire to. It is reinforced when a young woman weighs whether putting herself forward is worth the social risk.

The expectations I internalised growing up did shape the leader I became — at least at one point in my career.

This is why education has a role that extends far beyond academic achievement. We are not simply preparing children for examinations or employment. We are helping them develop a sense of who they are, what they can contribute, and whether they believe their actions can influence the world around them.

Because leadership does not begin with a title. It begins with agency.

And perhaps the responsibility of education is to make sure that children do not spend years learning to ask for permission before they learn that they can lead.

That is a responsibility worth taking seriously.

Start before she learns to shrink

My original exploration of women's empowerment began with women questioning the expectations that had shaped them. But writing this article has made me think about what might happen if we started that conversation much earlier.

Education should not wait until girls have already internalised years of expectations before asking them to become confident leaders.

Girls need opportunities to take on meaningful responsibility while they are still learning who they are. They need spaces where disagreement is safe, ambition is not treated as something that needs to be softened, and mistakes are part of learning rather than something to fear.

We also need to broaden our definition of leadership. Girls should not have to choose between being themselves and being taken seriously. And rather than simply telling them to find their voices, we should create environments in which their voices genuinely matter.

Perhaps the question is not whether today's girls are confident enough to lead.

Perhaps it is whether we have created environments in which they understand that leadership is theirs to pursue in the first place.

A girl should not have to wait until adulthood to discover that ambition was acceptable. She should not need permission to disagree, to take up space, to make mistakes, try again or lead.

Perhaps the most powerful thing education can give her is not permission, but agency.