Wanted: Role Model

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I was watching a programme about female role models the other night which I think needs to be compulsory viewing for anyone who works with young people/the media. It basically illustrated how many young girls have no interest in making a name for themselves through hard work, instead harbouring ambitions to marry into success or to let their image do the talking. This is, of course, all a little misleading. All of these so called 'shallow' icons (Katie Price, Kim Kardashian, etc) have certainly put the hours in to get where they are today. However, as the programme acknowledged when interviewing TOWIE's Amy Childs, this hard work isn't always so visible (and can lead to young people viewing certain paths as the easy option).

We were then shocked with statistics telling us how few girls could name a female scientist/politician/business woman. I was actually horrified by the fact that I also struggled to come up with many myself. Having always considered myself as having ambition beyond what handbag I'd eventually like to own, it's worrying to realise that I'm probably more familiar with Emma Watson's style evolution than any great scientific discoveries made by a fellow woman. It's not that I don't care. It's just that, as the programme said, women don't tend to be talked about quite so much as men for reasons other than what they look like or who they're dating. This is a subject close to many feminist's hearts, with Caitlin Moran even dedicating a whole chapter of her book to role models (I'm seriously trying to mention this woman in as many posts as possible!).

It wasn't all doom and gloom. The programme also took three work-shy young girls and paired them with mentors (such as the founder of Nails inc and the CEO of a charity) in order to show them that there's more to life than fake tan and becoming a WAG. As predicted, once these girls had been shown an alternative, they were all for the world of work.

As many people say, feminism often deals with economic issues. Your aims in life are largely a sum of your background and education- if you've never been inspired to believe that hard work will get you places (places which allow you to keep your clothes firmly on) then of course you're more likely to be drawn in by a job which promises fame and glamour. Life can be mundane and uninspiring if you don't have people to look up to, people to show you that things can get better. So instead of frowning upon the girls who see themselves as the next Katie Price, why not ask ourselves if society has done enough to show them that there are other options?

I just want to end on an observation. I googled 'CEO' to see if there were any fitting images for this post. Needless to say, I was greeted by countless photos of men with a mere scattering of women, the third of which was CEO Barbie (as seen above). I think it says a lot when google ranks a plastic doll more highly in relevance than real, living and breathing women.