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Theme Changer

 Topic: Female role models

 (Read 68350 times)
  • 12 3 ... 6 Next page « Previous thread | Next thread »
  • Female role models
     OP - May 12, 2012, 08:51 AM

    Not so much confined to women in islam, but as it is a women's issue I felt it was best placed here.  Truth be told even young muslim girls are only ever really taught about the wives of the prophet and his buddys, so the only role model they are getting is how to be a strong wife for your more worthwhile husband.

    Quote
    They love Nicki Minaj and Adele – but where are the real guides for girls?

    Survey links narrow range of inspirational figures to stereotypical career ambitions


    They look to Cheryl Cole, Katy Perry, Jessie J and Adele for their role models. But few girls can identify any successful businesswomen and most failed to name a single sportswoman.

    According to a report by Girlguiding UK, the Disney starlets Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez were role models for children aged seven to 11, while teens admired the Harry Potter actress Emma Watson and the singer Nicki Minaj.

    The study concluded that the narrow range of female role models available to girls and young women was linked to the limited and stereotypical aspirations they had for their future.

    Researchers noted as "worrying" the assumption by girls that sportswomen were less successful than sportsmen, despite dozens of British female world, Olympic and Paralympic champions in recent years.

    Television shows such as Jersey Shore and Skins were found to be hugely influential in shaping girls' views of relationships with boys and their own behaviour. Some of those interviewed could name a handful of successful businesswomen, whom they respected for what they had achieved but found it hard to relate to on a personal level.

    The researchers said: "The danger is that many celebrities are at a different life stage to the girls who seek to emulate them. Girls know little about the reality of their lives, so their behaviour is seen without context and appears free from consequences. When this is combined with reality programming that also normalises behaviours such as promiscuity or excessive consumption of alcohol, the result in the 'real world' of girls' experience is that the normalisation of sexual relationships in Year 10 [15-year-olds], for example, becomes as unexceptional as the aspiration to become a pop star or be on TV."

    Often girls would cite women from the entertainment industry who had branched out into business, such as Lily Allen, but researchers argued that this risked distancing their view of business from their everyday life.

    The study also found that girls and young women dismiss careers such as engineering or construction as "jobs for boys", and instead wanted to be actors, singers, writers, dancers or fashion designers, often inspired by celebrities whom they admire. One girl told researchers: "Part of my architecture course is engineering and I actually hate it. I don't want to know anything to do with soils, the ground or rocks."

    The findings were drawn from six focus groups of 39 girls and young women aged seven to 21, which were run by Childwise – an independent market research agency.


    Source


    I think this is pretty true.  I'm even racking my brain for strong female role models to now teach my little girl (and my sons) about.  I can think of a few, but I was raised amidst the same sort of "women are crapper than men at everything" society, so even though I always believed I could do whatever a man could do, I wasn't aware of the names of the women who were doing it too.

    As to what it says, about girls thinking that women sports players aren't as successful or as good at what they do, that is actually something that is 'enforced' social conditioning by all the people, men and women who continue to say women are shit at everything.  They don't get the TV time that men do, people on the streets continue to repeat the same standard sentence "women footballers are a joke". and young girls slowly begin to think that women in sports is tolerated but not something they can excel at.  (not when it would be having a mannish figure and being slated for it by pretty much everybody except a small selection of dudes with a muscle fetish on women)

    So anyway, in this thread, post the women you think are inspirational.  Women who have made success without being on the disney channel or making a crappy hip hop bikini wearing video.


    Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #1 - May 12, 2012, 08:54 AM

    My mum. But I don't really want to share videos of her. Tongue

    Can't think of any others...Oprah I guess. A bunch of people I know have lived dignified and meaningful lives, but they're not famous so I don't have videos of them. :/

    Self ban for Ramadan (THAT RHYMES)

    Expect me to come back a Muslim. Cool Tongue j/k we'll see..
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #2 - May 12, 2012, 09:03 AM

    Oprah is a good choice, and plenty of videos to back it up.

    Thing is, I'm looking for success away from the TV, since the whole media success rests on your appearance and Oprah has succumbed time and time again to this struggle to maintain societies beauty ideals. 

    Or maybe this is just the judgmental part of me, that I see all of this surgery, dieting, youth chase, as a bad thing to succumb to.  Either way I will teach her about Oprah, but I want to teach her about a tonne of other women who are not only successful, but happy with themselves at the same time.  Maybe that's a tall order though.




    Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #3 - May 12, 2012, 09:15 AM

    I posted this a long time ago but it's worth a listen again in this context

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoEZQfTaaEA&t=2m0s

    So once again I'm left with the classic Irish man's dilemma, do I eat the potato or do I let it ferment so I can drink it later?
    My political philosophy below
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwGat4i8pJI&feature=g-vrec
    Just kidding, here are some true heros
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBTgvK6LQqA
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #4 - May 12, 2012, 09:18 AM

    Anne Frank
    Marie Curie
    Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Radio pulsar discoverer)
    Florence Nightingale (apparently she was a statistician as well as a nurse and writer o.o...)

    I think fictional characters can be role models as much as non-fictional, especially for young children, they tend to imagine things more. Stories can inspire different professions from the various topics, you can select the books based on the fictional characters (or non fictional, if its a NF book).

    "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." - Viktor E. Frankl

    'Life is just the extreme expression of complex chemistry' - Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #5 - May 12, 2012, 09:22 AM

    Oh also that Hypatia woman, from that movie Agora (but she was a real person, movie based on her)

    "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." - Viktor E. Frankl

    'Life is just the extreme expression of complex chemistry' - Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #6 - May 12, 2012, 09:28 AM

    Hypatia was cool. Bloody Christians killed her though. Roll Eyes

    Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West. bunny
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #7 - May 12, 2012, 09:28 AM

    When I was a kid I really loved Amy Lee. Not only is she an incredibly talented singer, but she explicitly said she would never sexualize herself to increase sales.

  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #8 - May 12, 2012, 09:32 AM

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

    So once again I'm left with the classic Irish man's dilemma, do I eat the potato or do I let it ferment so I can drink it later?
    My political philosophy below
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwGat4i8pJI&feature=g-vrec
    Just kidding, here are some true heros
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBTgvK6LQqA
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #9 - May 12, 2012, 09:35 AM

    BerberElla

     dance dance dance
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #10 - May 12, 2012, 09:39 AM

    Meg Murray in A Wrinkle in Time

    So once again I'm left with the classic Irish man's dilemma, do I eat the potato or do I let it ferment so I can drink it later?
    My political philosophy below
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwGat4i8pJI&feature=g-vrec
    Just kidding, here are some true heros
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBTgvK6LQqA
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #11 - May 12, 2012, 09:44 AM


    Suck up.

    Self ban for Ramadan (THAT RHYMES)

    Expect me to come back a Muslim. Cool Tongue j/k we'll see..
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #12 - May 12, 2012, 09:46 AM

    Michelle Obama- I find her extremely fascinating Afro

    井の中の蛙大海を知らず。
    (I no naka no kawazu taikai wo shirazu)
    A frog in a well does not know the great sea.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #13 - May 12, 2012, 09:51 AM

    Michelle Obama was much more before her husband became president. Now all she does is play the role of the housewife.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #14 - May 12, 2012, 09:51 AM

    What's wrong with being a housewife?

    Self ban for Ramadan (THAT RHYMES)

    Expect me to come back a Muslim. Cool Tongue j/k we'll see..
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #15 - May 12, 2012, 09:52 AM

    Nothing. But she was a career-oriented woman.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #16 - May 12, 2012, 09:54 AM

    ...I'm totally missing your point here. :/ She went from being focussed on a career to being focussed on her home (and apparently 'homemaker' counts as a career).

    So like most people, she prioritized. What's the issue?

    Self ban for Ramadan (THAT RHYMES)

    Expect me to come back a Muslim. Cool Tongue j/k we'll see..
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #17 - May 12, 2012, 09:55 AM

    I posted this a long time ago but it's worth a listen again in this context

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoEZQfTaaEA&t=2m0s


    See, having buffy as a role model didn't really inspire kick ass strength, more it helped continue to ram home that you have to be pretty to kick ass so majorly.  I know this wasn't exactly the goal behind it, but like anything on TV, it reinforces for me, where I lack.

    Did not realise his mother was an inspirational figure though.   Afro

    Anne Frank
    Marie Curie
    Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Radio pulsar discoverer)
    Florence Nightingale (apparently she was a statistician as well as a nurse and writer o.o...)

    I think fictional characters can be role models as much as non-fictional, especially for young children, they tend to imagine things more. Stories can inspire different professions from the various topics, you can select the books based on the fictional characters (or non fictional, if its a NF book).


    Thanks, have added them to the folder.  and the hypatia woman.   Afro 


    Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #18 - May 12, 2012, 09:58 AM

    When I was a kid I really loved Amy Lee. Not only is she an incredibly talented singer, but she explicitly said she would never sexualize herself to increase sales.

    (Clicky for piccy!)


    do you happen to have a link to the interviews she has had in which she said this? 

    Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #19 - May 12, 2012, 10:04 AM

    ...I'm totally missing your point here. :/ She went from being focussed on a career to being focussed on her home (and apparently 'homemaker' counts as a career).

    So like most people, she prioritized. What's the issue?

    The point is that she had to succumb to society's expectations of what a woman has to be.

    When Bill Clinton was president, Hillary was constantly attacked, because she was too strong and independent. People couldn't accept that. Some even blamed Bill's affair with Monica Lewinsky on Hillary, saying that she needs to be a better wife.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #20 - May 12, 2012, 10:10 AM

    do you happen to have a link to the interviews she has had in which she said this? 

    @2:05

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KiOJOY-hFQ
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #21 - May 12, 2012, 10:18 AM

    Just stumbled across this woman:  http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/inspirational-women/jennifer-buffet-philanthropy

    I like the sound of her.  Sure, she was gifted a tonne of money to do what she does and we won't all get that luck, but I love what she said made her begin:

    Quote
    And yet only a handful of years ago, Jennifer felt impotent and miserable. The Buffetts first met when Jennifer happened to sit at a table next to Peter, an Emmy Award — winning musician and composer, in a Milwaukee restaurant one day. "It was like a meteor hit our hearts," recalls Jennifer, who was then 25. "It undid all my plans. I don't know if destiny is the word, but there's an inner knowing. I believe that when you have those feelings and impulses, your job is to follow them."

    They married when Jennifer was 30, and she spent the next decade devoting herself to Peter's work, a self-effacing choice that came all too easily. "I have a twin brother and had been socialized to support him and let him go first," explains Jennifer, who was raised in a traditional Catholic family in Milwaukee.

    But one day she woke up and thought, "I feel invisible," she recalls. "I remember thinking, This isn't working. I'm putting all this energy into someone else's thing, but it's always going to be his, not ours. I have no voice. So I started to be really depressed."

    She says she tried to talk with Peter about changing their relationship, but "he didn't want to hear it," she says. "When I hit the low point, I realized that it didn't matter if the marriage was over. I finally said, 'Enough!' — and everything changed."

    Instead of ending the marriage, her rebellion unexpectedly revitalized it. "I just said, 'I'm taking control of my life. You can do what you want, but I'm not participating in it anymore,'" reports Jennifer, whose experience convinced her that conventional gender prescriptions are deeply destructive to women.

    "I don't think the traditional female role serves us. I think it serves men," she says. "When somebody is subordinating themselves, it's just too easy for the other person to take them for granted and not value them. We need to start to say no. You think you're being selfless in giving, but you're being a martyr. Self-care is not a selfish act."

    So when the Buffetts started their foundation, it was built on a very different premise. "We made an agreement that we were going to work on this together, as a partnership. We are cocreating, and we have an equal voice," says Jennifer.

    For her, the impact has been revolutionary. "I feel more alive than I ever have in my whole life," she says. "We have the ability to do so much. I can't wait to get out of bed and support that."

    In investing in other women, Jennifer has also learned the key to empowering herself. "This is what I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing," she says. "I feel like my life is just beginning."

    Read more: Jennifer Buffet Interview - Jennifer Buffet's Novo Foundation Charity - Marie Claire

    http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/inspirational-women/jennifer-buffet-philanthropy


    There are a good few more women on that page. 


    Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #22 - May 12, 2012, 10:24 AM



    Thanks boody, just watched it.  Good stuff.

    If any other female singers you can think of that take this stand point and have inspirational videos to go with them, add them to this thread.

    Want to get my daughter to watch them since she is so media influenced.  Grin

    Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #23 - May 12, 2012, 10:29 AM

    Laurie Penny

    Quote
    Penny's blog, "Penny Red", was launched in 2007[6] and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2010.[7] (The name Penny Red refers to a Victorian stamp.) She began her career as a staff writer at One in Four magazine and then worked as a reporter and sub-editor for the socialist newspaper The Morning Star. She has written columns and features for several publications,[8] and is a columnist for the New Statesman[9] and regular contributor to The Guardian.[10] Penny is the author of the Zero Books publication Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism (2011).[2] In it she mounts an attack on liberal feminism, which she characterises as embracing the consumer choice offered by capitalism as the path to female emancipation.[11]

    Wikipedia
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #24 - May 12, 2012, 10:31 AM

    Louise Mensch vs Laurie Penny on feminism

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOareP9NNcY
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #25 - May 12, 2012, 10:40 AM

    Louise Mensch vs Laurie Penny on feminism

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOareP9NNcY


    LMAO @the BBC and women representatives!

    "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." - Viktor E. Frankl

    'Life is just the extreme expression of complex chemistry' - Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #26 - May 12, 2012, 10:47 AM

    What about the Queen?although im sure people would criticize my choice but Id say she is a strong woman considering her leadership.

    Mother Theresa?

    Funmilayo Ransome Kuti : this woman led a protest against the native authorities that the traditional ruler went on an exile and later step down.

    I know there are better ones than those ones i have listed so it will take a while for me to figure some out

    "I'm standing here like an asshole holding my Charles Dickens"

    "No theory,No ready made system,no book that has ever been written to save the world. i cleave to no system.."-Bakunin
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #27 - May 12, 2012, 10:47 AM

    Grin  I love the attack on Jeremy.  Especially when she points out that he tries to put her back in her place.
    Strong well spoke women, I love it. 

    Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #28 - May 12, 2012, 10:49 AM

    What about the Queen?although im sure people would criticize my choice but Id say she is a strong woman considering her leadership.


    The Queen was born to power, I get she is also a gifted politician etc, but she was born to what she had, and I've always found it harder to admire the people born to royalty.  I have class resentment issues.  Grin

    Quote

    Mother Theresa?


    Good call.

    Quote

    Funmilayo Ransome Kuti : this woman led a protest against the native authorities that the traditional ruler went on an exile and later step down.

    I know there are better ones than those ones i have listed so it will take a while for me to figure some out


    had not heard of her.  Thanks for the link.   Afro

    Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
  • Re: Female role models
     Reply #29 - May 12, 2012, 10:58 AM


    Sophy Ridge, Sky News political correspondent


    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

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