What does it mean to run like a girl?
Years ago, it meant running slowly — badly — without any real ability. Today, that answer has been complicated, thanks to the work of leaders like Catherine McKenna — Canada’s former minister of environment and climate change. McKenna joined the McMaster community for a March 3 event to celebrate women in leadership and promote her new book, Run Like A Girl.
The book started as a COVID project, with McKenna searching for reflection and a way to connect with people. “I really felt that I owed to give it back to the women in particular that supported me, and to the young people who supported me,” she said.
The book comes at a time when it feels like we’re backtracking on a lot of things, McKenna said, from climate to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). It explores ambition, setbacks, and making change on your own terms.
McKenna delivered a keynote address to a packed crowd in L.R. Wilson Concert Hall, which spanned her earliest ambitions to become a competitive swimmer, her pivot to a law degree and time working for the UN, and her time as an MP and cabinet minister, where she fought for climate change and faced rampant misogyny as a woman in politics.
All of this is chronicled in her new book. The title — Run Like A Girl — came from McKenna’s memory of playing soccer, at around the age of 10, and being told she ran like a girl. She took it like an insult and internalized it. “It did make me think, if I want to win, I have to do things like the boys.”
Years later, she now challenges that thinking, and champions making change on your own terms. She adopted “Run Like A Girl” as the motto for her grassroots campaign in her 2015 run for office.
“My coach said I ran like a girl, I said if he could run a little faster he could too.”
~Mia Hamm, Olympic gold medalist and U.S. Women’s Soccer player
McKenna chose to leave politics in 2021. She emphasized to the audience that while politics was a part of her life, it wasn’t her whole life.
McKenna shared stories from her career and experiences fighting for climate change action.
The book is for everyone, but especially for young people, she said. “I think it’s really hard right now. You guys have all lived through the climate crisis … Donald Trump style politics … COVID.”
She also encouraged the audience — which included many McMaster students — not to put too much pressure on crafting a master plan for themselves in order to become effective changemakers.
“You don’t have to plan out your whole life,” she said. “Things are going to happen beyond your control … you also have to live life.”
For young people in the audience, her message was clear. She didn’t know how to make change when she started — but she was passionate. She asked herself, “What can I do?” and she kept going.
Young leaders shaping leadership
McKenna’s keynote was followed by a fireside discussion with Kristina Llewellyn, professor with the Wilson College of Leadership and Civic Engagement, History, and Global Peace and Social Justice Programs; and Beverly Jacobs, vice-provost, Indigenous; moderated by Karen Bird, professor of Political Science.
They discussed takeaways from the book, how to learn to lead when you’re feeling uncertain, finding mentors, and the role of schools and young leaders in shaping leadership.
From left-right: Kristina Llewellyn, Beverly Jacobs, Catherine McKenna, and Karen Bird.
Llewellyn noted that there’s still a gender binary about what it means to look like a leader. “We still prize a very loud, combative, kind of hostile notion of getting it done,” she said. “We don’t value as much the care work, the emotional intelligence that’s needed, the collaborative deliberations and kind of collective action that I think is what’s really needed for leadership.”
She hopes that the Wilson College leadership program is complicating this idea of what a leader looks like. “Because I think we’ve asked for too long for young women to really lean into a system that is really broken.”
The panelists also discussed the need to change political culture and name misogyny when it appears.
While serving as Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, McKenna was given the nickname “Climate Barbie” by a right-wing media outlet. She ignored the jabs, until a fellow MP used the term via Twitter.
In politics, McKenna said, “we allow people to behave in a way we wouldn’t allow in any other environment.”
McKenna signing copies of her book at the event.
But she still encourages anyone who wants to go into politics. “Being involved is amazing, because you can make real change.”
Having women in power is particularly impactful when it comes to climate issues, noted the former minister. “Women are two and a half times more likely to act on climate change,” McKenna said. “Women are really leading the way, and that gives me hope.”