A pilot, a tech CEO, a “mermaid” and a royal harpist were just some of the impressive female speakers who joined pupils at Roedean School in Sussex to celebrate International Women’s Day.
The 20 speakers were invited to address girls from Roedean and other local schools and came from a wide variety of disciplines but all had accomplished major achievements, often despite some entrenched sexism.
Isioma Collins, a black female Boeing 787 pilot, is one of the 5% of female pilots in the UK and talked about the casual bias that she has met as she struggled to enter a very tough industry to break into.
She said: “When I was growing up, I never saw a female pilot and we did travel a lot as a family. So that had an impact in that I felt like being a pilot wasnt a option. But then my mum suggested it to me at 16, jokingly I think, and it made sense to me because I had often thought that although I love travelling and exploring places the best bit about going on holiday for me was travelling in the plane.”
She added: “It was tough to break into the industry and when I was invited to a social meet up of pilots to make connections, I was the only female there. And there is still misogyny today, years later now that I am a professional pilot myself. It’s not unusual for me to land the plane and walk into the cabin from the cockpit only for passengers to say, in an astonished voice, “‘Are you the pilot?’ Even after I have been talking to them through the intercom during the flight. There’s disbelief.”
Former official royal harpist and orchestral musician Alis Huws regaled pupils with how few women composers people knew about even though there have been many through history and today. She said: “People assume there have not been that many but it’s just that their voices simply arent heard. Orchestras tick boxes by saying they have performed female composers’ music but in reality they play very little compared to male composers.”
Meanwhile, actress Honour Mission, who leads the March of the Mermaids every year on Brighton seafront to raise awareness for marine conservation, popped into the school to talk about her environmental work and how she keeps this important issue in the public eye while CEO of tech firm ARK and former Roedean pupil Doyin Abiola-Tobun talked about her journey from Roedean through real estate and banking to running her own company.
Roedean deputy head Ross Barrand said: “Today in 2025, more girls go to school than ever before. Nevertheless, a quarter of the way though ther 21st century, more than 122 million girls worldwide are still denied an education because of their gender. Since summer 2024, women in Afghanistan no longer have the right to speak outside the home and 1.5 million Afghan girls have deliberately been deprived of their right to any education. We are incredibly fortunate to be educated in the UK so it’s our responsibility to grab whatever opportunities we have with both hands.”
Categories: Roedean School School News
