Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tom Hiddleston and Sir Anthony Hopkins all studied there. And now one of Britain’s most prestigious drama schools, the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Arts, is opening up courses to a new line of students: women in business.
RADA has launched a women-only program that teaches young employees who are entering the workforce how to communicate with confidence and employ assertive body language.
According to The Telegraph, the courses are based on acting techniques at the academy and also instruct women to take up more space and stop apologising. You can learn all that for just over $1000 for a day.
For senior executives, RADA offers courses with pointers on how to “interrupt and handle interruptions assertively” and “unlock the power of your voice so that when you speak people listen”.
RELATED: Is This The Most Powerful Woman In Australia?
It’s easy to draw a link between the launch of these workshops and the very real gender inequality that exists in the workforce. Women continue to be underrepresented in many leadership roles in both the private and public sectors, the Australian Human Rights Commission reports.
And while women make up 46 percent of all employees in Australia, they take home on average $283.20 less than men each week.
Speaking to The Telegraph, RADA client director Liz Barber explained the courses ultimately aim to bolster confidence and empower women.
“When they arrive they will be keen to show off their technical prowess, but quite often they haven’t been taught about how to hold themselves and make their voices heard,” she said. “Our courses are trying to change that by giving women the skills they need to empower themselves.”
Admittedly, it’s disheartening that these courses even exist in the first place. Instead of teaching women to speak in a manner that defies interruption, shouldn’t our male colleagues just be decent humans and listen up in the first place?
But if the classes give just one woman the confidence to speak up in a meeting—or ask for the pay rise they more than likely deserve—we can’t knock that.
RELATED: “How to succeed in business” according to a superblogger”
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
