When I was growing up, my role models fell into two categories: those I wanted to spend time with and those I wanted to look like.

It never occurred to me, as I crimped my hair and hung myself with crucifixes like mid-eighties Madonna, that she would be someone worth being stuck on a desert island with (no cheap references to the frightening “Swept Away” of 2002.)

Lost For Words

Words like “idol” and “model” are used very loosely these days.

I know I sound archaic when I make statements like that, but ask any teenager on the street what they associate with these terms and no doubt they will refer to one – if not two – reality TV shows.

While I don’t hark so far back to the time of matinée idols and Model T Fords, I do remember the days before these words strayed from their original meanings – as descriptors of people who a worthy of imitation or adoration.

Are the celebrities that occupy ninety percent of the press’ time and energy really role-models? Would any of us willingly wish the life of the young Hollywood starlet on our own kids?

If I was a teenager today, where would I find my inspiration?

Would I have thought it an everyday occurrence to drink drive, to fight in public, to have a failed marriage in my teens and to promote myself through the media by being either a spoiled, over-sexed brat or an object to be pitied?

Why Women Need Role-Models

A paper published in the influential “Psychology of Women Quarterly”, reports on a study that found that women benefit more than men from having same-gender examples of success.

More than 63 percent of women selected a woman as their academic or occupational model. Many of the study’s female participants noted that it was important to see someone who illustrates having overcome gender barriers and stereotypes.

The author, Dr Penelope Lockwood, a social psychologist specialising in research on role models and motivation, explained, “Female role models may not only be a useful example for women who are attempting to determine their potential for future achievement, they also may provide a means of undermining stereotypes that might otherwise threaten their career performance.”

So what happens when there are no positive, successful role-models to inspire young women?

In 2001 a young writer contributed to the website “Teen Ink” with a post on this issue:

“The other day, I did an online search for sites about female role models. I went to ask.com, then searched on nbci.com, yahoo and aol with the keywords “female role model.” Basically, all I came up with were fashion sites and sites for the U.S. women’s soccer and softball teams…

I feel extremely cheated. I try to discover women to view as positive role models, but no one presents anyone other than Mia Hamm, the Williams sisters or other people who are appreciated because they have athletic talent. That is nice for girls who want to play tennis or soccer, but leaves a huge void for many girls….

Females should not have to spend large amounts of time searching for women to admire. They should be out in the open and praised without a second thought. We need to move beyond the days when your average boy could spout off a list of male intellectuals who are openly adored, yet your average girl can think of maybe one or two women, and sometimes even none at all.”

Role-Models Today

So how did the results of my own search, in 2007, differ?

Just as in 2001, there were references to sporting stars, but most of the links were to new blogs like this, questioning the dearth of modern role-models.

My search also took me to “The Best Stuff in the World” website where readers ranked “The Best Female Role Model.”

The winner with 152 votes was Angelina Jolie, second place went to Gillian Anderson (X Files) with 71 votes, 32 voted for Kate Winslet and 22 for Jennifer Aniston. Some interesting inclusions were Björk (22), Lisa Simpson (20), Oprah (19) Susan Sarandon (4), Geena Davis (2), Laila Ali (2) and Eleanor Roosevelt (2).

There may be some hope it seems, given that there is a smattering of strong, positive personalities amongst the list, but this needs to be balanced with the fact that the site also had categories for “The Best Skanky Celebrity”, “The Best Slut” and the “Best Bitch.”

So What Happened to Lindsay?

Looking at the photos of all of the badly-behaving starlets, I have to wonder if maybe it was just a different world when I was growing up.

Our mothers, after all, were products of the sixties and seventies. They had lived with, embraced and even instigated major changes in their lives and on the world stage. The role of women had been redefined in their time and so perhaps they came to the role of motherhood with a determination to breed independent, change-embracing daughters.

Looking back at the movies of the 1980s, the heroines were strong-willed individuals like Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Mary Stuart Masterson and Winona Ryder. Their big sisters were Jane Fonda, Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon and (my eternal favourite) Carrie Fisher.

Despite any of the hardships and bad choices these celebrities experienced, they were never to be mistaken as mere Hollywood concoctions, more famous for the number of arrests or visits to rehab they had endured than for the work that had earned them the public spotlight in the first place.

Your Suggestions?

There are obviously a lot of great influences that women can still take inspiration from, but how do we promote these positive influences in a way that can effectively compete with the highly publicised and often misguided modern-day idols?

An obvious answer is by finding great role-models that are closer to home and more firmly rooted in reality.

I don’t think that this translates to “be a great parent.” Great parents are already powerful influences on teenagers (even if they don’t always recognise it until well into their thirties!) but it must be said that most teenagers don’t want to spend time with or look like their parents.

Role-models need to come from their own world.

They need to be credible, relevant and accessible.

But how do we recognise and promote these positive influences, so that young women understand that intelligence, kindness, creativity and self-belief are the things that should really be admired and imitated?

Given that it is ten years today since Princess Diana’s death, I wanted to write a post in her honour… but to be honest I never really felt must kinship with the People’s Princess.

Her influence on public and political thought always seemed to be overshadowed by her glamorous outfits, famous friends and lurid love life. As the Evening Standard’s royal correspondent Robert Jobson said, “I don’t think you will ever match the fame, impact and notoriety of Diana.”

Yet she is repeatedly added to lists of the “most inspirational women on the modern age”, so perhaps she deserves to be up on a pedestal, standing among other iconic figures.

A Bronze Box on Parliament Square

There is something inspiring about a nine-foot hero in bronze. In the last couple of days Nelson Mandela has been unveiled as such in London’s Parliament Square. Described by Gordon Brown as “the most inspiring, the greatest and the most courageous leader of our generation”, it got me wondering about the timing of the event, given the important anniversary of a figure who is still imprinted on the minds and hearts of Londoners.

And I am not the only one drawing comparisons. Tony Benn, a famous Labour politician and WWII veteran who was at the statue’s unveiling, commented, “If Diana was the people’s princess, Nelson Mandela is president of the human race.”

That seems fair. After all, every little boy dreams of being the president one day and every little girl a princess. That way the boy can play with armies and decide the fate of nations and the girl can marry into a pampered life and be blessed with eternal happiness…

Predictable Icons

Nearly ten years ago I went to London in search of history and inspiration. I remember wandering through Parliament Square and gazing up at the rain-drenched statues, but now I can only recall a few of the famous figures.

Winston Churchill’s statue, erected in the 1970’s, is massive and brooding and the representation of Abraham Lincoln, a copy of an American statue, is suitably sombre, but who are the gaggle of Prime Ministers on their bronze boxes?

Disraeli, Derby, Palmerston, Canning and Peel – it is hard to tell one from the other. It is as if the selection jury got into a rut and could only get their inspiration by loitering outside Downing Street. It seems as disappointingly predictable as Miss Venezuela scooping the crown in the 1980s!

Which leads me to an obvious question – So where are the statues in dresses?

Okay, so most of the statues were erected long before women even had the vote (FYI: until 1928 it was acceptable for women to give birth to Prime Ministers – just not to vote for them) so there weren’t exactly an abundance of female heads of state to choose from.

But when I look at what the statues have in common, I have to wonder if it isn’t something else. Richard Attenborough, one of the champions of the Mandela statue, described Churchill as “a great man of war.” Was that the reason for so few female statues? That not enough of us girls have buckled on a sword?

The Warrior Queen

But of course there is a female representative – you just have to go a little further to find her.

On the corner of Westminster Bridge and Victoria Embankment lurks Boadicea, the warrior queen of the Iceni people in eastern Britain. She is of course displayed in her war chariot, her arms pointed skyward in a typical military pose. She looks surprisingly content to be so close to the centre of British power, given that she burned London to the ground…

So while military might is celebrated here again, at least it is in female form. But I’m not sure that I can feel particularly inspired by the rebel queen. Maybe I need to see the Boadicea movie – with Cate Blanchett revisiting her scary Lord-of-the-Rings persona – and then I’d be able to feel some stirring of sisterhood.

Looking further afield, another female statue appears: Emmeline Pankhurst looms large in the Victoria Tower Garden. Like Mandela, Pankhurst was no stranger to imprisonment or hunger strikes for her views.

But then of course with the breakout of WWI she turned her suffragette efforts into a pro-war and pro-conscription movement. She toured the country making recruiting speeches and terrorising men in civilian dress with white feathers.

Hmmm… Another tick for war-mongering…

A Statue for the People

So who could we rally behind, as a statue of the people? Gordon Brown has said of the Mandela sculpture that “It sends around the world the most powerful of messages – that no injustice can last forever, that suffering in the cause of freedom will never be in vain.”

Talk of people and causes brings me back again to Princess Diana. The one thing I remember most about her good works was watching her walk the fields of Bosnia in a flack jacket as she campaigned against landmines. I know she championed many other causes, like Centrepoint (young homeless), National Aids Trust (Aids and HIV), and the Leprosy Mission, but it was her quiet dignity – that seemed both so out of character and so out of place on the scarred fields of battle – that captured my attention.

And maybe that’s why she doesn’t have a statue on the square. Not only did she miss becoming a head of state by quite a long whisker, but perhaps she was also too peace-loving for such a serious square.

Female Inspiration in Parliament Square

Speaking of peaceful protest, earlier this month the Greater London Authority decided to forcibly remove dozens of peace protesters from Parliament Square. Camping there for the past year in support of the veteran peace campaigner Brian Haw, they have set up a sort of women’s retreat on the lawn.

Max Pemberton, writing for the Telegraph, commented on the fact that “their tents are spotless. A kindly woman called Maria shows me neatly stacked Tupperware in which they keep their daily provisions, and their rubbish is collected each day. They move the tents around so as not to damage the grass.”

Maybe I’m just a sucker for the little people, but it warms my heart to think of these middle-aged women in their anoraks sorting their Tupperware in the shadow of all those important statues.

While the noble men gaze off at the wars (past, present and future) from steely, bronze brows, the women calmly go about their business in their temporary homes and do what women have become so good at: protesting in the shadow of silent, unmoving men.

PS. In Googling some of this story, I thought maybe I could make an amusing reference to the Tupperware Queen. Surely the revolutionary inventor of Tupperware deserves to be recognised in bronze? But I was quickly disappointed, for the apron-clad, kitchen queen I imagined turned out to be a New England inventor called Earl Tupper. More disheartening still, Tupper’s invention was born not because of his love of crisp shortbread biscuits but because demand for his plastic gas mask parts plummeted at the end of World War II!