BUNBURY is in for a dose of feminist empowerment with Dr Jane Coffey as this years guest speaker at the 2021 International Women's Day Breakfast on March 7.
Presented by the Zonta Women's Club of Bunbury, the breakfast will be held at the Mercure Bunbury Sanctuary Golf Resort in line with this year's campaign theme #ChooseToChallenge.
Dr Coffey, a senior lecturer at the Curtin University School of Management and Marketing, confessed she still felt like an imposter due to her humble beginnings to most traditional academics.
"I immigrated to Australia from the UK in 1971. My parents didn't have the opportunity to go to uni so they wanted to give my brother and I a better education."
After a period of homelessness resulting from her parents' struggle to find employment, Dr Coffey spent her teenage years in state housing whilst attending Perth Modern School.
"Being told by a male teacher not to bother pursuing university was all the encouragement I needed. I remember thinking no, you can't tell me what to do," Dr Coffey said.
After graduating from Curtin University, Dr Coffey worked in human resources for local government before beginning her own HR consulting business in 1993.
In 1994 her daughter Olivia was born and she realised that mixing work with raising Olivia made her a better parent all round.
"I became a single parent. It was hard to juggle but I was blessed that I could financially sustain myself. It hit me that this was important for women to be able to do."
"My daughter grew up with just me, knowing that Mum could do anything. I think she gained a lot from it because she's so independent now."
Sixteen years ago, Dr Coffey was offered a casual teaching role at Curtin within a faculty of mostly white, privileged males.
"It was a privileged education they were giving these students, they hadn't suffered any obstacles and they certainly hadn't been a single parent raising their kids and that really concerned me."
In 2012, Dr Coffey completed her doctoral studies on career aspirations of the youth, focusing on young women from the public schooling system.
She then created a core unit called strategic career design which focuses on students' individual life design.
The unit encourages students to believe in themselves to choose the course they truly want to pursue.
"Women still don't have the confidence that young men have. This is about providing education so that women believe in themselves to achieve financial independence."
At the Zonta club, Dr Coffey plans to focus her talk on the empowerment of women through education.
She will also address future changes in the working world for women due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"All Covid has done is speed up what the working world will look like. People will be at home in flexible positions that single mothers especially will benefit from."
"I hope women will walk away believing they can do anything. Going forward, women won't need to forfeit their family to work a 40 hour work week."
Dr Coffey is working to close the gap on disadvantages for women in Australia and has recently been given a grant to assist students at university with mental, physical or intellectual disability.