A short while ago someone on Facebook put a poll up to find out who people looked up to most. This questionnaire was not segmented by job type or anything like that but even so the results were quite surprising. The results of the poll can be found here!
While perhaps somewhat predictably a large percentage of women look up to artists and more men look up to politicians and business people and sports people than women do, interestingly I thought more women look up to scientists than men do. That was not the case in this poll though. There seeems to be no logical reason why women don’t look up to scientists as far as I can see but then again if you ask a female who they look up to I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be Einstein, Darwin or Newton. They will probably choose someone who created a visual impression on them so they are more likely to remember Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Raphael, Botticelli or Da Vinci (although the younger generation answering that question could well have lumped their favourite singers and actors/ actresses into this section, in fact that is far more likely than them looking up to art style artists…. Or maybe I’ll be proven wrong in the comments!)
As someone really interested in sport I was quite surprised that so few women looked up to athletes and sports personalities, in comparison to their male counter parts this was quite a surprising statistic. I’ve always looked up to swimmers, mainly because I used to swim competitively. The likes of James Hickman were people that I looked up to. Not just because of the swimming but also for doing a permenant job, the dedication to the sport and the way they handled pressure and media attention so well. (and if you ever met James you would know he’s always really friendly and always happy to offer words of advice and encouragement, a great role model.) More recently with my interest in climbing I look more towards Lynne Hill as a great example of a climber who has done amazing and wonderful things! Again, another fantastic example of a great sporting figurehead. Then again I don’t think I would encourage children to look up to athletes in sports where there is a lot of doping and drug related issues. (e.g. cycling) That just wouldn’t be good for a child. As parents I guess (as I don’t have any children myself) it must be hard to find really good solid role models for children. After all the actors, actresses and singers are always found in papers made out to be great but having done terrible things, sport and drugs seem to go together. Then comes business and politics… Need I say more.
I think maybe it’s time for people to start bringing forward great role models in todays society. People that young people will relate to but who are great people with excellent morals and values! Lets hope we can encourage young people to do good rather than bad, fight crime rather than create it and help make the world a safer and happier place.
Obviously the questionnaire was a random sample of people answering the question on Facebook so it is probably not representative worldwide but it does give some food for thought about positive role model. Maybe females need young actors, actresses and singers who are willing to show their geeky side. Maybe they just need to see others having fun when they interact with computers rather than seeing them as a pain point or something for the boys.
Who knows better than those young people about what interests them and attracts them to look up to someone?! (maybe one or two of them will read this and come back with some answers! I might be lucky!)
About Sarah Lamb
Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.
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