Cheryl Cole - person who has made the most positive impact in the world today?

[NorhamGardens]

My Sister's very gifted 14 year old daughter was asked to pick the a person to do a project on. The emphasis was on choosing someone who had overcome huge odds to make a positive impact on the world today or similar. Person that deserves huge admiration and respect, that sort of thing. Deserves to be a national icon and so on.

Three quarters of my niece's class chose Cheryl Cole. No Nelson Mandela? No Mother Theresa?

I questioned her. She explained that it would have been all to easy for Cheryl to descend into drugs like others on her Estate. She has huge talent and gifts - a great dancer who studied at the Royal Ballet School and stayed despite teasing and bullying. (A quick google showed she did a summer camp or similar and didn't pursue in part due to bullying/teasing).

I am noticing that my niece and her generation appear to value 'prettiness' above all else and that is really why they admire Cheryl in the main. That and thinking she's cool. Let's face it if she was plug ugly it's very likely she would never have gone as far as she has.

AIBU to think that it's pretty shocking they didn't think to choose someone else? AIBU to hope that so many didn't tie up their self worth with their 'attractiveness'. (A look at their Facebook accounts would make you weep? Or is it all about being a teenager and Cheryl is to be admired in this way? She's cool, she's down to earth, beautiful and talented etc..Maybe I am the old fart here ?

She never said chick with a dick though - Gordon Ramsey said it, and she giggled...not pleasant, but not quite the same. Lily Allen had also been laying in to her husband and her band mates for no reason other than to get in the papers prior to that. So I have some sympathy there.

I'd take her over Katie Price any day though.

No surprise. this year its cheryl, a few years ago it was jordan thta young girls aspired to be. impossible to change this ? i fear so. so sad. very sad.

well the sad thing is, that i can't even think of anyone that i would want young girls to aspire to.
i don't like ellen mccarthur particulalry. not sure why. just not that keen on her.

i should be able to think of 4 or 5 women instantly, surely ?

No Oblomov - let's not be defeatist.
Girls have not always aspired (even the bright ones like in the OP) to be WAGs and girl group singers and flipping glamour models. It is an artefact of our current daft media-driven, anti-feminist culture and it can and will change.

seth, you are too optimistic.
so which lady should be be encouraging our girls (glad i have 2 boys and don't have to think about this) to aspire to, then ?

for those looking for books DD1 has been reading this series

mary seacole

better link here whole list

On a lighter note, this reminds me of back in 2000 when our primary school asked all the children to write about, name or draw the person they thought was the most important person of the past millennium.
The results were published in a book that parents could then buy and answers ranged from the Queen to Nelson Mandela, Kennedy, etc.
One little boy, in reception at the time, nominated .......... my son. DS was five at the time and to be fair, hadn't achieved THAT much. I think the boy had been stuck for an answer, looked up, saw DS sitting next to him and decided he was as good as anyone else.

tametiger, "Cheryl Cole is considered beautiful by the standards of our time - tiny frame, fake tan, hair extensions etc."

Two out of three of those aren't even hers. How depressing.

It is sad and depressing. It's the same in all of the Western Countries I think.

I see it all around me and sometimes I feel like I am fighting a lost battle and can't escape it.

It's so reassuring to see so many likeminded people on here - I really am not on my own, hurrah x

i really don't think that's a fair representation of what children think. my ds(16) certainly wouldn't say anyone like that and don't think most of his mates would either.

am a bit hmm that so many would say cheryl cole to be honest

CC is someone they all know. If it had been in the 90s it might have been Princess Di. It's the fame angle. Check out any magazine for this age group & it's filled with celebs. The good thing is that they've noted her hard work to escape her life on the estate.

bluecardi, yes it's a lot to do with media exposure. The situation reminds me a bit of those absurd surveys that report that the top 10 films or songs of all time happen to have been made since 2005. Most people just have't tried older and better stuff. I think it's like that with role models too. Lots of consumers have such short attention spans.

As a fellow sufferer of Coleitis I have to agree that I admire her strength in the daily battle of this affliction.

i never aspired to be like Princess di God forbid though i did wear the clothes which were THE fashion then. Nothing we say will deter a lot of the young ones from loving celebs.They just see fame and money it will be them.Tomorrow it will be someone else and they are hoping

Definition of Coleitis:

The affliction of wearing any designer label garment. and still make it appear that you are wearing the sale rail at New Look.

It's a constant daily battle.

Please give £2, just £2 a month.

Norham Gardens, she was tried in court and acquitted of the allegation of giving the toilet attendant a lot of racist abuse.

Frankly, if I had to choose between being disappointed by teens being obsessed by celebrity or being disappointed by posters ignoring the fundamental principle that someone who has been acquitted has been found innocent of the allegations made against them, I'd go with the latter.

And I don't see why it's any of our business either to vilify Jade or forgive Cheryl. Shilpa Shetty, the toilet attendant have been wronged -- not us.

Actually:

The jury found her guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, but cleared her of racially aggravated assault. The judge sentenced her to 120 hours of community service and ordered her to pay her victim £500 in compensation, as well as £3,000 prosecution costs.

So not a violent racist yob, just a violent yob.

Sihilly - it's not our business to slag off anyone but we do it on AIBU all the time. 'Tis fun. Anyway, if I earned what Cole earns I wouldn't care if the whole world slagged me off. Lighten up.

Hum. Some people's idea of fun is different from mine. Not sure that I've ever thought it was fun to call someone a yob. Justified, maybe, but not fun.

Also, not that fun for MN if comments cross over the legal line in relation to high-profile public figures. Accusing someone of something they've been acquitted of falls into that category, I'd have thought.

But she wasn't acquitted of assault, just rascism. She was fined for her assualt. If that's an ABH charge or GBH charge, that isn't yobbish behaviour?

She was also quoted as saying that in her family she was taught that if someone hits you, you hit them back. And that was what she was going to teach her kids one day.

Which in the role model stakes, of course, takes her even lower.

But she has damn fine hair...

I don't like the idea of her as a role model to young women but she doesn't deserve the vitriol she gets on this forum (and elsewhere).

She was acquitted of racism and to now call her a racist based on that single incident is just like the no smoke without fire argument. And if she is racist then she has gone above and beyond the call of duty in trying to put up a smoke screen. Not only did she marry the 'half black' (whatever that means) Ashley Cole, she is also, if rumours are correct having a dalliance with that Will.I.Am fellow.

All this Ashley Cole is secretly gay stuff - if that were true wouldnt at least one of the numerous people he was shagging during his marriage have been a man? Again, if he's trying to keep it quiet he's putting in the extra miles in going about having sex with loads of other women he doesn't really fancy.

She is good looking. She can't really sing very well. She is in a band that make quite good pop records. She cries at sentimental stuff on X factor. Nothing to get excited about in role model terms but nothing to despise either surely?

im so heartened to have read the OP to my 12 year old daughter. she thought for a while and said William Wilberforce.

when i told her the about the cheryl cole thing she wrinkled her nose and laughed.
i love my dd.

have come to this late in the day but just wanted to say to stealth I'm hearing you sister, people forget she was convicted of assult.