Who would be a female icon in these fickle days? No sooner have you peaked
professionally - selflessly flogging makeup, wrestling Third World babies
out of Madonna’s bony grasp or shaking off malaria and a philandering
husband - than the public decides you no longer qualify as an influential
role model.
A new poll of women on women for mydaily.co.uk has revealed that Kate Moss,
Angelina Jolie and Cheryl Cole are non-starters compared with the likes of
Baroness Thatcher, Florence Nightingale, Condoleezza Rice and The Queen.
“These findings are very much substance over style, and that’s very
reassuring,” observes Harley Street psychologist Sue Frith. “These role
models all made a difference to other people’s lives, rather than solely
being out to line their own pockets. They’ve achieved their goals by virtue
of offering their skills to the world.
Interestingly, while Margaret Thatcher was crowned the most influential woman,
with 31 per cent of the vote, only two per cent said they would like to swap
lives with her. On the other hand, 26 per cent of women said they’d like to
be J K Rowling, although just 13 per cent voted for her, which suggests that
the Harry Potter author’s glitzy lifestyle has a greater allure than being
immortalised in bronze at the Palace of Westminster. Who would have thought?
Nobody after glancing at this noble roll call, in order of perceived might:
Mrs T, Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa, The Queen, Oprah Winfrey,
Michelle Obama jointly with JK Rowling, Joanna Lumley, Anne Frank,
Condoleezza Rice and Anita Roddick jointly with Germaine Greer.
Lumley is the only showbusiness name on this roster of greatness, but this has more to do with the fact that in recent years she has become an ardent campaigner on behalf of Gurkhas’ rights, so presumably that cancels out the sexy shame of The Purdy Years.
I don’t mean to be cynical, and far be it from me to undermine the Sisterhood, but the faintly disloyal thought occurs that isn’t this worthy charter just a smidgeon too good to be true?
Just as a World Book Day survey last year revealed that 65 per cent of us fib about the clever books we’ve read (Nighteen Eighty-Four, War and Peace and Ulysses are the usual suspects trotted out to impress), so, I strongly suspect, do we err on the side of aspiration when it comes to identifying our icons.
Whither Coleen Rooney, fronting a £5 million Littlewoods advertising push? Or Felicity Kendal, who may not have the frontline clout of Lumley, but moves like a gazelle at the age of 64? Where, pray tell is the sainted Cheryl Cole, who only has to pop on a pair of stripy tights or an M&S dressing gown for it to fly off the shelves within hours?
“Conducting surveys is a science, and it’s very easy for bias to creep in, unwittingly, or indeed to be created by the way a question in phrases,” says survey expert and charterd psychologist Mark Millard.
“People generally like to please, so if they’re asked 'which well known woman is the most influential in the country or the world?’, they will immediately get the idea that a stateswoman or humanitarian is the sort of answer that’s wanted. “If they’re asked “which well known woman influences you?”, it’s a very different question, and would generate a different response.”
Similarly, being given a list of possible choices that is heavily weighted in favour of heavyweights, can send out a message that these are more appropriate choices than models, WAGs and girl band songstrels.
Selecting interviewees from a certain milieu can also be used to produce specific feedback. Received wisdom has it that women queueing for X Factor Live tickets will give different responses from bluestockings attending a conference at Cranfield’s International Centre for Women Leaders. But perhaps that’s a wholly erroneous assumption?
Maybe Britain’s womenfolk should regard this poll as offering proof that while our water cooler conversation may focus on Charlotte Church’s dramatic weight loss and Tess Daly’s slutty frocks, the qualities we most admire, actually, are intellect, independence, integrity and fearlessness.
Yes, we might be addicted to Strictly and happily devour the celebrity gossip stuffed down our throats like foie gras geese, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the virtues of supply-side economics or hygiene practices in the field hospitals of the Crimean War. Women are, after all, multi-taskers at heart.
There’s only one way to put the veracity of this research to the test; out with the starlets and in with the genuine movers and shakers. Let’s catapult Germaine Greer back onto prime time and giveaway free (yes free!) copies of Condoleezza Rice’s biography with every issue of Cosmopolitan.
Clear the airwaves of Lady Gaga, bring back handbagging and put Mother Teresa on the cover of Heat! Sales will soar - because this is what women want. Or at least what we say we want.
Lumley is the only showbusiness name on this roster of greatness, but this has more to do with the fact that in recent years she has become an ardent campaigner on behalf of Gurkhas’ rights, so presumably that cancels out the sexy shame of The Purdy Years.
I don’t mean to be cynical, and far be it from me to undermine the Sisterhood, but the faintly disloyal thought occurs that isn’t this worthy charter just a smidgeon too good to be true?
Just as a World Book Day survey last year revealed that 65 per cent of us fib about the clever books we’ve read (Nighteen Eighty-Four, War and Peace and Ulysses are the usual suspects trotted out to impress), so, I strongly suspect, do we err on the side of aspiration when it comes to identifying our icons.
Whither Coleen Rooney, fronting a £5 million Littlewoods advertising push? Or Felicity Kendal, who may not have the frontline clout of Lumley, but moves like a gazelle at the age of 64? Where, pray tell is the sainted Cheryl Cole, who only has to pop on a pair of stripy tights or an M&S dressing gown for it to fly off the shelves within hours?
“Conducting surveys is a science, and it’s very easy for bias to creep in, unwittingly, or indeed to be created by the way a question in phrases,” says survey expert and charterd psychologist Mark Millard.
“People generally like to please, so if they’re asked 'which well known woman is the most influential in the country or the world?’, they will immediately get the idea that a stateswoman or humanitarian is the sort of answer that’s wanted. “If they’re asked “which well known woman influences you?”, it’s a very different question, and would generate a different response.”
Similarly, being given a list of possible choices that is heavily weighted in favour of heavyweights, can send out a message that these are more appropriate choices than models, WAGs and girl band songstrels.
Selecting interviewees from a certain milieu can also be used to produce specific feedback. Received wisdom has it that women queueing for X Factor Live tickets will give different responses from bluestockings attending a conference at Cranfield’s International Centre for Women Leaders. But perhaps that’s a wholly erroneous assumption?
Maybe Britain’s womenfolk should regard this poll as offering proof that while our water cooler conversation may focus on Charlotte Church’s dramatic weight loss and Tess Daly’s slutty frocks, the qualities we most admire, actually, are intellect, independence, integrity and fearlessness.
Yes, we might be addicted to Strictly and happily devour the celebrity gossip stuffed down our throats like foie gras geese, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the virtues of supply-side economics or hygiene practices in the field hospitals of the Crimean War. Women are, after all, multi-taskers at heart.
There’s only one way to put the veracity of this research to the test; out with the starlets and in with the genuine movers and shakers. Let’s catapult Germaine Greer back onto prime time and giveaway free (yes free!) copies of Condoleezza Rice’s biography with every issue of Cosmopolitan.
Clear the airwaves of Lady Gaga, bring back handbagging and put Mother Teresa on the cover of Heat! Sales will soar - because this is what women want. Or at least what we say we want.
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