“WHEN women connect and commit to a common goal, serendipity kicks in – things start to happen and that idea becomes a reality.”
Channel 10 news anchor and senior editor Sandra Sully told the International Women’s Day South East Women in Business breakfast that the goal was choice and freedom for men and women, without judgement.
“The womanhood is a powerful force for change,” she said.
South East Melbourne Manufacturers Alliance (SEMMA) executive officer Paul Dowling introduced “one of the most recognisable faces on television” at the Sandown Racecourse event on 8 March.
“She was a pioneer in that she was the first person to deliver the news with personality,” he said.
Mr Dowling said she’d covered everything from the 2011 royal wedding and the Melbourne Cup to the 1997 Thredbo landslide and September 11 terrorist attacks.
“With calm and poise, Sandra was the first person in Australia to tell us about the terror unfolding before our eyes,” Mr Dowling said.
Ms Sully said her 21 years at the television network had “zipped by”.
“They say it does when you’re having fun,” she said.
Her focus quickly turned to women and their place in the world.
“Days like these put emphasis on the famous or successful,” she said.
“But it’s the everyday women who are having an impact on our lives.”
She put women from the Third World in the spotlight.
“Women in those communities instigate change,” she said.
She said they stood up every day to defeat the odds and deliver generational change.
Ms Sully recalled one woman who pledged to increase the number of wells in her community so girls didn’t have to make 20 trips a day to collect water.
Others had taken up the challenge to publicly shame those responsible for domestic violence.
“They’re changing the cultural paradigm,” she said.
She said women around the world needed to maintain the conversation.
“Not the rage,” she said.
“When you’re angry, people turn off.”
But men had to be part of the momentum for change, she said, and highlighted White Ribbon Day as a positive example.
“Men are championing White Ribbon Day. Men are talking to other men,” she said.
“They want a better future for their daughters.”
She said quotas to see more women included on boards would reduce barriers in the business world.
“If you’re not at the table… you’ll never affect change,” she said.
“It’s about taking the opportunity.”
One of her greatest inspirations in the face of inequality is her eight-year-old stepdaughter who was plucked from an Indonesian orphanage when she was just five days old.
Ms Sully’s husband tells her she can be whatever she wants to be, and she believes the sky’s the limit.
“She doesn’t see gender. She doesn’t see it at all,” Ms Sully said.
“She genuinely sees the world as her oyster.”
