Lack of Female Role Models for Girls in the Media
It’s painful just how hugely teenage girls obsess over beautiful celebs, isn’t it?
Even more painful is remembering being exactly the same way.
As an awkward pre-teen, the waist of my trousers still that bit too high, I directed all my adolescent envy towards two TV babes: Holly Valance (Neighbours fan – weren’t we all) and Frankie, of the highly-regarded eight-piece ensemble, the S Club Juniors. Pause for emphasis.
They were older than me; I guess around 14 - slim, clear-skinned and so unbearably good-looking.
Call me a shallow kid but if someone had said to me, ‘What do you want in life?’ I’d have thought, ‘Flick Scully’s complexion’ without pausing. I didn’t know what else to put my energy towards. School?
Perhaps it was a blessing then, that my only exposure to these girls was through music videos, CBBC and my monthly Sugar mag, so I was only mildly hateful of myself. Imagining what my life would have been like if I were 11 years old today….to endure the social media noise that teenagers have now… well that’s too stressful to think about.
It’s likely I’d be drip-fed a continuous stream of Holly and Frankie through their Twitter feeds; lapping it up as they churned out duck-faced selfies, holiday pics strewn with product placement, bikini mirror shots - at a Kardashian regularity. In a misplaced brainwave I’d probably have uploaded a ‘vlog’ of myself re-enacting a Fast Show sketch with a toy panda or something, which, years later, I would almost kill myself trying to remove. I might have even… enjoyed Zoella. It’s frightening, what might have been.
Imagining what my life would have been like if I were 11 years old today….to endure the social media noise that teenagers have now… well that’s too stressful to think about.
But the next generation – the millennials (apparently I might be a millennial, a fact I’d rather hide away from)- live each day in this media frenzy, which is barely being contained. We’re only beginning to see the dark side developing from this parallel world - the Instagram culture, the trolling, cyber bullying, revenge porn – and what an obsession with narcissistic, selfie-addicted reality stars might do to a teenager’s sense of self.
The problem lies in the fact that the really cool women – the explorers, zoologists, scientists, entrepreneurs, are NOWHERE to be seen. And the Kardashians, the Jenners, the cast of Towie - who are solely famous for publicity and looks, are EVERYWHERE. They aren’t particularly admirable, aren’t representing a viable career move and are spreading their own message of ‘you don’t look good enough’ to their young fans like a disease.
It’s mostly ‘the Kylie Jenner effect’ (the influx of girls getting lip fillers due to her sudden enormous pout) that made me write this post, as it got me thinking about idols. Aside from their own family members, not to be downplayed, and a stock list of historical figures like Marie Curie that are churned out in school, there are just reams and reams of glitzy celebs. Throw in a Karen Brady, a Michelle Obama and a Mary Portas and that’s it, really.
A space-travelling woman going to Mars may be mentioned in the news one day, or an athlete on another day, or a CEO on another And then she fades into obscurity as a ‘What has she done to her face?!’ story dominates the air time for weeks.
Put simply, there is no PR for the real idols girls need. No scientists, world explorers, chemists, psychologists. No web designers, charity workers, astronauts or business owners. And if we, as adults, don’t know anything about the women making real changes in the world but constantly seeing Kim Kardashian’s blonde mop gets a news headline, no wonder girls are chasing their goals right into the cosmetic surgeon’s office instead.
There is no PR for the real idols girls need
I want to hear about women that are worth looking up to and emulating, who have made something of themselves based on more than their cheekbones. Who have seen a problem and looked to solve it, through hard graft and innovation.
And we should research them, and talk about them, and share them, and give them the PR they deserve – but also (cue the Miss. World bit) because it’s what young girls deserve. The scope of what women are achieving isn’t bleak; they’re just humble enough not to be yelling about it. It’s up to everyone else to yell about them instead. It’s up to us change the situation.
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