Female role models

[Polaris]

I wasn't sure quite where to post this, but I'll try here as it seems to somehow apply to the school, work, world affairs topic.

I have tried to think of my biggest role models/inspirational people throughout my life, and have found alarmingly few women. As I am a woman myself, I find this a little odd/disturbing.

My male role models/inspirational people right from when I was very young have been:

David Attenborough
David Suzuki
Karl Sagan
Albert Einstein
Nelson Mandela

The only female inspirational person I can remember is my primary school teacher, Ms Henriksen. She was a truly inspirational teacher. She had everyone involved in all her classes, and always made the subjects interesting by applying some practical context. For example, she sparked my interest in rocks (!), as she took us outside on many excursions where she displayed a real passion for mineralogy which was quite infectious. In music class she played music from all over the world and had us dancing. She was kind but had a firm grip on the class, everyone respected her.

I was mortified when she left, and found every teacher following her to be nothing but wet dishcloths with about as much enthusiasm.

The only other female sources of inspiration have been either authors or fictionary, for example Nancy Drew (......)

Did anyone else have role models, and who were they? Any women....??? Please give me some hope......

Edit: I forgot to mention Marie Curie and Queen Boadicea.

 

[Kidege]

Joan of Arc is the one historical figure I can think of right now.

Think about it: let's say you hear voices. Assuming you're a regular person, wouldn't you be scared sh*tless? And if you were compelled to act by them, how far would you go? If voices told me to convince the king of France of lending me an army, even if I truly believed St. Catherine was talking to me, I'd probably remain comfortably seated and pretend I don't hear them.

Next, think of yourself as a 15 y/o girl in a medieval army. Death, cold, hunger, illness and rape are a daily reality. I'd be trying with all my might to get the f*ck out of there. I wouldn't go and get myself a suit full of straps to make my possible unclothing and rape more difficult.

Whatever else Joan was, she was brave.

.............

Other interesting historical figures: Emmeline Pankhurst. Aleksandra Kollontaj if you're into communism.

........

Oh, and my own female role models:

a) Rosario Ibarra, who's a human rights activist and has been fighting for the 'disappeared' since her son became one. She was the 1st female presidential candidate in my country.

b) Alaíde Foppa. She was a poet and an activist. The Guatemalan govt 'disappeared' her.

c) My dear old mom. Activist, teacher, theologist, brick layer, you name it. If something is humanly possible she's done it or she could.

 

[Toad]

What about Mary Magdalene?

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

It depends on what you look for in a role model.

Clara Barton?
Queen Elizabeth I? II?
Elenor Rosevelt?

If you are looking for a role model based on behavior and not being a gender first, then it doesn't really matter if any are women or not. If you are specifically looking for a female role model, then ask yourself what characteristics you look up to and go from there. You are sure to find a good list.

 

[Enne]

Ching Shih.

 

[Kidege]

What about Mary Magdalene?

She... cried?

If you are looking for a role model based on behavior and not being a gender first, then it doesn't really matter if any are women or not

'zactly

 

[Polaris]

It depends on what you look for in a role model.

Clara Barton?
Queen Elizabeth I? II?
Elenor Rosevelt?

If you are looking for a role model based on behavior and not being a gender first, then it doesn't really matter if any are women or not.

Yes, I did consider that, but when I grew up we heard very little of what women did, and mostly of what men did. So I wonder if we had had more focus on female roles, would I have been more inclined to look up to these, rather than adopt the common focus, which really disregarded female achievements (which are sometimes on a smaller, but just as important scale, ex: the role of women as society's carers).

Have I been brainwashed into thinking that the larger, male achievements are the only admirable ones? I do not believe this, of course, but I admit I have been inclined to ignore the smaller scale efforts of especially women. What do other women think? I am a little older, so my perspective may be different.

 

[Cavallier]

Other than my Mother I've mostly looked up to men. Although I've always loved the story of how Deborah defeated the Canaanites. She seduced the leader of the Canaanites in his tent and when he fell asleep she put a tent spike through his head.

Mostly I've gone to Andre Norton and her ilk to get female role models. I always liked strong and capable women who could take care of themselves.

I agree that it really doesn't matter the role model's gender. I think I just preferred the bloody warrior tales as a kid and sadly history doesn't have a lot of records about women warriors.

 

[JUN]

Hmmm... I don't think I even have role models. Er, sorry, maybe i should complete my point here...

What is the purpose of a role model ?

 

[Anthile]

What about her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner ? The only reason she's not famous is because she's female, which is rather sad.

 

[merzbau]

how about ada lovelace, she had a programming language named after her.

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

Dagny Taggart.

Okay, I have a better answer than that, but I can't fricken remember her name!

So I'll give a bio:
This girl was the daughter of universalist parents in China. Her father stressed how religion was universal- there was no religion better than another, it was all the same human desire to be close to God/Heaven.

They returned to Massachusetts and the girl continued her education. She was hired as a teacher at a Unitarian church, and her excellence led them to ask her to write the whole curriculum for the Unitarian sunday schools.

The Universalists, hearing about the Universalists who was writing Unitarian doctorine, jumped on the bandwagon and also had this woman write their curriculum. (You guessed right: She wrote almost the same curriculum for the Unitarians and Universalists.)

A generation of U.s & U.s were taught the same things, and when they grew up they formed the Unitarian Universalist Association. There were men are the forefront, making the push for uniting...

but this woman was the mother of Unitarian Universalism, she was the ingenius power behind the scenes, who set the blocks in motion to the churches to be combined. She is the mother of Unitarian Universalism.

Unfortunately, she is not recognized very well- and I'm having a terribly difficult time finding her name.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Well Marilyn vos Savant has the highest IQ ever recorded. At it's highest; 230. I know IQ in and of itself isn't very merit-able, but the general belief is that the males occupy the outliers in intelligence and here we have a counter example. At the very least I'm jealous of her.

 

[Robert]

Hmm ...

Carole King's one of the best songwriters of all time. Lennon & McCartney wanted to be 'the new Goffin and King', which might hint somewhat at her importance in the development of music. Patti Smith and Debbie Harry are more recent influential songwriters. Oh and don't forget Kate Bush!

George Eliot's one of the greatest novelists of all time (Middlemarch is excellent). She wrote under a male pseudonym so she was taken seriously in Victorian Britain. Charlotte Bronte did the same under the ridiculous name 'Currer Bell', and she's also an excellent novelist (if you've only read Jane Eyre, don't judge her off that; read Villette). Lots of people rate Virginia Woolf, not read her myself.

 

[Polaris]

What about her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner ? The only reason she's not famous is because she's female, which is rather sad.

How interesting. Thank you for the link. Did you see the small footnote on the bottom of the page:

"According to the psychologist David Keirsey, she was an intj, a set of people who are, as to personality, the least emotional, most rational ones."

and:

"In 1944, Hahn received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission. Some historians who have documented the history of the discovery of nuclear fission believe Meitner should have been awarded the Nobel Prize with Hahn."

I am intrigued by this person now. Have to go and research more on her.

And Robert: I CANNOT BELIEVE I FORGOT KATE BUSH. I have most of her CD's. My older brother introduced me to her when I was nine or ten. I still play her music. Thank you! Sorry Kate!

I did read Wuthering Heights, but never got around to reading Charlotte Bronte. I have read Jane Eyre and Mansfield Park, but will look at Villette. The Norwegian author Sigrid Undset won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. I have read her epic trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter, and recommend it to anyone who are interested in historic literature.

 

[Cavallier]

What about her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner ? The only reason she's not famous is because she's female, which is rather sad.

I CAN'T believe I forgot about her! I'm a bastard!

 

[Claverhouse]

They Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore

The concept of female role models is very laughable; but as I've mentioned before, I'm very fond of Caterina Sforza, Lady of Forlì and Imola.

Not only a total stunner to look at, the best known tale of appreciation told of this gracious girl relates of when she stood on the battlements facing down a ravening horde of enemies --- of which she accumulated rather many with a rare facility --- who then held her infant children without the castle walls and threatened to kill them instanter unless she surrendered. She nonchalantly lifted her skirts to freely display her precious womanhood and taunted right back at them that 'she had the equipment to make more'.



In this century: Kristen Bell and Sophie Monk.




Claverhouse

 

[Cavallier]

The concept of female role models is very laughable

Would you be willing to sate the curiosity of somebody who doesn't know you well and elaborate?

 

[Decaf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi

 

[snowqueen]

There are a couple of different things going on in this thread ...

There are plenty of women in history and nowadays who are talented, brave, creative, innovative, fearless, activists etc - whatever category of 'role model' we might wish to draw upon. But they are not 'famous' in the way that the male ones are.

I would say that the main reason this is the case is a combination of the patriarchal habits of lifetimes - where dominant males are privileged over females and non-dominant males - and the media.

People like Einstein, Newton, etc. we generally all know from school - but we also know Florence Nightingale, Marie Curie and Joan of Arc by the same token. It's the lesser heroes and heroines who tend to be skewed by the gender difference. We are far more familiar with the males in that group than the females. It may be to do with what they are to be admired for - perhaps Nelson Mandela's political efforts are somehow more admirable than the humanitarian efforts of Mother Teresa? Perhaps it really is an ingrained sexism which produces a subtle belief that men's achievements are more worthy than women's?

It's sad that in the UK women's role models at the moment are probably Jade Goody, Victoria Beckham and Katie Price (Jordan) closely followed by Sheryl Cole. That's because they're most often in the media.

My personal role models are

Germaine Greer
Patti Smith
Claire Short
Hanan Ashrawi
Aung San Suu Kyi

I guess the reason is that they are all willing to take a stand, articulate and are not bound or worried by convention.

 

[Polaris]

There are a couple of different things going on in this thread ...

There are plenty of women in history and nowadays who are talented, brave, creative, innovative, fearless, activists etc - whatever category of 'role model' we might wish to draw upon. But they are not 'famous' in the way that the male ones are.

Yes you are right, there ARE plenty of women out there who are/have done amazing things. It is just a bit difficult to dig them all up. As you said, they are unfortunately not the priority of the media ( I nearly choked on that damn word...), as they tend to focus on the Paris Hilton clones of the world. And what great representatives they are.....

My personal role models are

Germaine Greer
Patti Smith
Claire Short
Hanan Ashrawi
Aung San Suu Kyi

I guess the reason is that they are all willing to take a stand, articulate and are not bound or worried by convention.

Interesting you should mention Germaine Greer. They are not too keen on her here in Australia. I am writing an assignment on Indigenous people, and this is what I found the other day:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/aug2008/gree-a28.shtml

Congratulations to the media again.....

 

[snowqueen]

Interesting you should mention Germaine Greer. They are not too keen on her here in Australia. I am writing an assignment on Indigenous people, and this is what I found the other day:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/aug2008/gree-a28.shtml

Congratulations to the media again.....

you gotta love her! She is such a brilliant thinker and so fearless. I saw her once years ago on a news chat programme around the time when the UK was plagued by football hooliganism and all these middle class liberals were sitting around oohing and ahing about 'what should we do to tackle this scourge' after some fans had caused riots in Sweden or somewhere and when it came to her turn she said 'it's easy, you just have police with those guns they use to kill cattle and as they come off the ferry, they take each hooligan, 'bang' into the centre of their forehead and throw them into the channel'. I nearly choked on my tea from laughing so much.

 

[Ashenstar]

There are plenty of female role models well known and also ordinary.

Joan of Arc was mentioned previously and she is one of my personal favorites.
I also liked the story of Deborah in the bible since her actions, to put it simply, were pretty bad ass.

At the moment, I am fascinated/obsessed with Yayoi Kusama.

It also should not be forgotten that a good majority of the time these historically significant men who went down in the books as nothing short of incredible had pretty incredible women to back them up.

 

[aracaris]

Ada Lovelace is another interesting woman (at least if you are a computer nerd anyhow) that I found out about thanks to my C++ textbook recently. Granted her accomplishments were more part of a team effort between her and Babbage, than solely her own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace

Seems to me women intellectuals get even less recognition than just about any others.

 

[fullerene]

yeah... I would have just said Marie Curie, I think. I actually didn't believe there was a gender bias in school (may have been stupid of me, I know) until a week ago, when we had to do a short little internet-lookup thing on female scientists.

Curie was a beast. She got two Nobel prizes in different scientific fields (Phys. and Chem.), got 19(!) degrees, invented a method for using x-rays to find bullets in soldiers during WWI, and then trained a hundred or so other women to operate the machines.

I knew she was a good scientist, but I had no idea she was that intense.

 

[Polaris]

yeah... I would have just said Marie Curie, I think. I actually didn't believe there was a gender bias in school (may have been stupid of me, I know) until a week ago, when we had to do a short little internet-lookup thing on female scientists.

Curie was a beast. She got two Nobel prizes in different scientific fields (Phys. and Chem.), got 19(!) degrees, invented a method for using x-rays to find bullets in soldiers during WWI, and then trained a hundred or so other women to operate the machines.

I knew she was a good scientist, but I had no idea she was that intense.

Yes, medical sciences have a lot to thank Curie for. And she was very impressive, although all her other merits that you mentioned seem to have been forgotten, or overlooked.

you gotta love her! She is such a brilliant thinker and so fearless. I saw her once years ago on a news chat programme around the time when the UK was plagued by football hooliganism and all these middle class liberals were sitting around oohing and ahing about 'what should we do to tackle this scourge' after some fans had caused riots in Sweden or somewhere and when it came to her turn she said 'it's easy, you just have police with those guns they use to kill cattle and as they come off the ferry, they take each hooligan, 'bang' into the centre of their forehead and throw them into the channel'. I nearly choked on my tea from laughing so much.

Yes, hehe...she has a subtle sort of way of expressing her opinions....we need women like her to rattle the cages a little.

 

[cuterebra]

Yep, my heroes have almost all been men as well. The vast majority of my favorite writers, directors, and musicians are also men. I'll second Snowqueen's Patti Smith, though.

Katherine Dunn is probably one of my favorite female writers--she wrote Geek Love, a book I put off reading for far too long simply because it was written by a woman and had the word "love" in the title. Boy, did i feel silly when my husband finally convinced me to read it and I realized that the "geek" she refers to in the title is the kind that bites the heads off chickens at the carnival...

 

[Claverhouse]

Would you be willing to sate the curiosity of somebody who doesn't know you well and elaborate?

Nah, not really. Just that for biological reasons men have dominated in every civilization until the decline of each [ you'll note that Théroigne de Méricourt, doyen and prototype of future female revolutionaries came to prominence in the Great Revolution, yet never even then had the clout of a Maximilien or Danton --- OK, she suffered greatly from mental illness, but that wasn't a show-stopper for most French revolutionaries; Think of Hébert, Saint Juste or poor wretched Marat, cowardly stabbed in his bath-tub by a liberal girl whose accomplishment was also over-rated... If you entered a bus where one of these was seated at the back, you'd sit near the driver. ] And 95% of everything was created by males.


In my opinion, because they can't create children.

It's sad that in the UK women's role models at the moment are probably Jade Goody, Victoria Beckham and Katie Price (Jordan) closely followed by Sheryl Cole. That's because they're most often in the media.

Isn't Jade Goody dead ? I was fortunate enough not to have seen her living, but I vaguely recall a Princess Di moment hitting the sentimentalist press.

It's doubly sad since all those you mention are singularly physically repellent to look at.




Claverhouse

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Small wonder you're lonely.

 

[Cassandra]

Female Role Models:

Marie Curie (textbook answer, but still a really cool scientist)
Dr. Anna Wessels Williams
Dr. Lene Vestergaard Hau
Mrs. Frizzle (from Mrs. Frizzle and the Magic School Bus...duh)

 

[Polaris]

For those still searching, I've found a link:

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/women.html

As far as science is concerned, research shows there is an under representation of women in this field. My view is that women have repeatedly been told they are of inferior intellectual abilities, especially in the science fields. Thus, many women right from childhood have been afraid to enter a field which has traditionally been dominated by males. The pressure to perform was amplified, as women were almost expected to fail.

I remember my mother telling me when I encountered difficulties with mathematics: "It is all right, you are a girl, and girls have lesser mathematical abilities. You are good at languages and art, you should concentrate on that". (And my mother had a calculator for a head, which was really quite contradictory)

..........BLEURGH!!! ......gee, thanks mum.


I have always had a passion for science, but was thoroughly convinced I would fail in this pursuit as I was........female.

About fifteen years ago, I completed an associate degree in dentistry (which by the way, bored me to tears) The course only tiptoed around the hard sciences, and I never felt like I was getting even close to the kind of science I would like to study. When I finally worked up the courage to re-enrol into university three years ago, I realised my mathematical abilities were actually better than I thought. I was able to put myself through mathematics subjects I had not even touched upon fifteen years earlier. I now found mathematics interesting, as I had a context to put it into. I am currently confidently pursuing a career I always dreamed of.

The general view appears to have changed now, I would like to think that young women today do not have that inferior self image. I would like to hear what you think, and what your experiences are.

 

[Cassandra]

I have always had a passion for science, but was thoroughly convinced I would fail in this pursuit as I was........female.

About fifteen years ago, I completed an associate degree in dentistry (which by the way, bored me to tears) The course only tiptoed around the hard sciences, and I never felt like I was getting even close to the kind of science I would like to study. When I finally worked up the courage to re-enrol into university three years ago, I realised my mathematical abilities were actually better than I thought. I was able to put myself through mathematics subjects I had not even touched upon fifteen years earlier. I now found mathematics interesting, as I had a context to put it into. I am currently confidently pursuing a career I always dreamed of.

The general view appears to have changed now, I would like to think that young women today do not have that inferior self image. I would like to hear what you think, and what your experiences are.

You have my deepest sympathy...

Remember, your math skills are probably really good, if you love science, study it, it will love you back. I don't know where you live (or how old you are), but, at least where & when I am, science is ever increasingly more open to women. Especially the sciences of biology, biochemsitry, and chemistry. You still don't see that many upper-level physisists or mathematicians...but look at any major research university in the US and at least 40% of their biochem. staff is female.


I have never had to go through the unfortunate experiences you have described. A little, maybe. Just the occasional "friend" who told me it was silly of me to think of going into science. Those types of discouragements only served to spur me on. However, when your family and close friends, as well as society itself, is forcing the "reality" down on you that women cannot be scientists or mathematicians...that's another story. That really hurts, restrains, limits.

Instead, my parents, especially my dad, introduced me to science at an early age and encouraged any interest I showed in the subject (which was a lot of interest). When I first said, "I want to be a geologist" (at age 3), my dad recalled to me that it was his proudest moment.

Of course later I changed that to space explorer, then to chemist, then to astronomer, then finally settled on biochemistry...but never wanted to be anything other than a scientist.


With your background in dentistry, you could certainly go back to college and go into microbiology and study protiens (my favorite), or something else. Physics isn't as clearly related to what you've studied before...but don't let that stop you if you really wanted to switch tracks to that. Einstein was a patent clerk before he was a physics genius.

It has been my experience that females are generally better at stringing lots of separate ideas together to form a big picture idea. This is really what the "concepts" part of science is about. To put it a different way, females are more likely to be polymaths rather than gifted in one specialized area.

Good Luck, best wishes

 

[cuterebra]

And 95% of everything was created by males.


In my opinion, because they can't create children.

Eh, I think it has more to do with the fact that, up until the last few decades, women had no choice but to spend most of their adult years knocked up (or celibate). How much can one really get done as a human incubator?

 

[Polaris]

You have my deepest sympathy...

Remember, your math skills are probably really good, if you love science, study it, it will love you back. I don't know where you live (or how old you are), but, at least where & when I am, science is ever increasingly more open to women. Especially the sciences of biology, biochemsitry, and chemistry. You still don't see that many upper-level physisists or mathematicians...but look at any major research university in the US and at least 40% of their biochem. staff is female.

Hey, thanks Cassandra

I appreciate your encouragement. As much as I have experienced plenty of gender-based discrimination, I have never felt sorry for myself, though. It had an effect on me early on, when I was very young and impressionable. What it did, though, was probably make me more hell-bent on getting where I wanted.

I had people telling me what I should be doing constantly, including my ex-husband. Hence the ex, haha.... I have found, as soon as I freed myself from the influences of people close to me, I was able to think. I always knew I could to better.

As far as female mathematicians are concerned, my greatest source of inspiration and encouragement at uni was my female Doctor of Mathematics. She helped me overcome my fear of failure.

I am now pursuing a degree in environmental sciences, hoping to do my own research one day. I have always loved science, and have to thank my father for that. Like your father, he introduced me to the world of science. He taught me astrology, had me interested in geology (one of my favourite subjects), chemistry and biology. He used to take me outside on a cold winter night to study all the stars in the sky. He took me to the deep forests and still lakes, and we used to sit there and wait for the beavers and moose to turn up. It was pure magic. I will never forget these memories, and always thank my father for being so conscious of sharing the wonders of nature with me. He also taught me how to change tyres and check the oil on the car, and even taught me stuff about electronics.

Thanks to my father, I am never stuck for solutions to practical problems. I can now fix stuff around the house, and enjoy problem-solving in general.

Perhaps my tendencies towards having male role models is a result of my father's influence? My mother used to piss me off with her black and white views (I think she was also quite misogynistic in many ways), but then she was brought up in very tough circumstances in post-war Germany. I probably would have turned out the same.