JKC: A Crusader

In hearing about the achievements of Jill Ker Conway, it made me realize how scarce women in power are. You don’t come across women as high up as her, especially in the time period she did it in. She went from living on an Australian ranch to attending a prestigious boarding school and going on to attain a diploma from the at the honors college of the University of Sydney. She then went on to receive her Ph.D. from Harvard University in Boston Massachusetts. Well under 1% of high school graduates go on to attend institutions like Harvard or Yale, yet she did it as an immigrant. The biases and obstacles she faced, Just because she was a woman did not get in the way of her thirst for knowledge. She was so determined to succeed she didn’t let any stigmas around her gender or anything else stop her.

The fact that so many women including Jill Ker Conway had to go through open discrimination in the workplace makes me sad because I can only think that while she was going through this struggle it was deterring other women with so much potential from pursuing what they love. I think back to my grandmothers and up until recently neither one of them was educated beyond high school. But they are/were two of the most intelligent women I could know which tells me that even though they had the ability to achieve higher learning they didn't because of the deterrents on women from education and success. Both of them were house mothers who raised my parents and their siblings. They were expected to stay in the house and live the lives provided to them by my grandfathers. Though this is noble, women also received lack of support from other women to start a movement and I think that if more people would have had the courage and drive similar to Jill Ker Conway, there would be a lot more progress in this area of discussion.

Jill Ker Conway was a crusader for women everywhere paving a way toward a new world with female and male leadership, and without more people with her same mindset, I don’t think this issue will be resolved. Not to say everyone can be just like her because they can’t she is very unique, but women with the open thirst for knowledge, power, and equality are always needed to carry on her legacy.