Who are today's inspirational women and how do we feel about current female role models?

[JustineMumsnet]

I'm attending an event tonight which is discussing today's inspirational women and wanted to pick your brians please.

Who are your role models - do you have them, do they bear any resemblance to those that tend to top the lists in the meeja? Are there women that you find inspiring and why?

Second the vote for all the women who face unimaginable fear to leave abusive relationships. And Women's Aid and other bodies who help them.

Also the millions of women doctors, lawyers, mechanics, engineers, pilots, lorry drivers, astronauts, professors and politicians etc who are just going about their business, a lot of them probably unaware of the fact that there was a fight to allow them to do those jobs. I always imagine Mary Wollstonecraft or the Pankhursts and early female strikers giving them a big thumbs up and knowing their work wasn't wasted.

Sonia Sotomayor.

CJ Cregg from the West Wing :o

CaptainNancy do you know Kate Cairns? Cos I do... agree she is pretty inspirational!

Harriet Harman
Jk Rowling
Mary Portas
Susan Sarandon

HELENA KENNEDY

Fancesca Klug for unwavering commitment to the Human Rights ACt

Christine Chinkin for commitment to women's rights

Helen Bamber for spotting a huge gap in the human rights movement and establishing the Medical Foundation for the Victim's of Torture

Hina Jilani for putting rights of others above her own safety

and all of them get extra points for doing what they have done at a time, or in a place, when/where as women they've had to fight just that little bit harder (ie I find the first 3 particularly inspirational because they're a older than me iyswim)

Oh and (always mention her on threads such as this)

Camilla Batman-Ghelidja
for doing great work with children in very difficult circumstances and for totally and utterly being herself

All the female leaders - especially those in male dominated countries leaders

And all the mothers who gave up, sorry, sacrificed their careers or who, like my mother's generation, gave up their hopes to have a career, because sometimes "having it all" actually doesn't work.

Oh thank you Blu!

Helena Kennedy - amazing woman.

sorry - am not HK :o Meant thanks for reminding me.

Shami Chakrabarti
Camilla Batman-Ghelidja
JK Rowling
Mary Warnock

{might start the rumour that Elephants is Helen Kennedy]

i cannot think of anyone in the media that i look at as a role model.

I have always admired both Ann Widacombe and even more so Mo Mowlem. Not only because they are women in a mans world but also because they don't do the "lets try and be glam or stylish" they knew they were there to do a job and they got on with it. very well too imho.

But i dont see them as role models as such.

The women i see as role models are the women i work with, the mums at my sons special school, the women on here who despite terrible tragedies get up and paint on a smile for their children. they are my heroins not some silly bint off the telly

Arlene Blum, the mountaineer. (see Wikipedia)

More votes for:

Hilary Clinton (probably my all time)
Harriet Harman (as much for putting up with the shit, as for her dogged highlighting of the inequalities between men and women)
Margaret Thatcher (if only for the fact that she proved that women were capable of wielding power and not shrinking from bold decision-making)
Meryl Streep (for always being a Real Woman and not a caricature)
Janice Turner of The Times (for some fantastic articles over the past year or so, exposing how pornography is becoming normalised)
Shami Chakrabati (already been said, but for her persistence in highlighting civil liberties issues and dignity in the face of mockery and abuse)

My role models are probably closer to home - several friends whose example I try to follow and my grandmother.

Tracey Emin

The art world is hugely misogynistic and she has flicked them a massive "V" sign.

And whilst I know that she has now passed away, Jane Tomlinson.

she really was an utterly outstanding woman.

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland. Openly lesbian, and took over the leadership as someone whose reputation hadn't been ruined by the financial crisis.

In 2010, after her government banned strip clubs, paying for nudity in restaurants, and other means of employers profiting from employees' nudity, Jóhanna said "The Nordic countries are leading the way on women's equality, recognizing women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale."

I agree with others about role models being closer to home. for me, a couple of colleagues who have never stopped being utterly passionate about the work they do, one of them also for always opening her home to friends and to people who need suppirt (and who become friends)and my mum: for picking herself up from some form of breakdown (I was too young to quite understand it all), going back to work after years of sahm-dom, keeping her family together, (all on her own); for finding her niche (not til her 50s) as a sn teacher for children with multiple and profound disabilities and for doing voluntary work for people less well off than herself at the age of 79.

Ooh - one I forgot.

The Queen. Despite the reputation of the Royal Family collapsing around her ears, she still retains international respect. I so wish she was able to write her memoirs - think what an amazing historical record that would be. For some, she doesn't rank alongside people of achievement, since she was GIVEN her role, but considering what an appalling burden it must be at times, especially as she can never retire, she continues to do it with exceptional grace, tact and dignity. And I happen to like the fact that there's an old lady at the very centre of British society - it means that women and the elderly can't be entirely sidelined or dismissed.

and quite a lot of these Women for women

I want Elephants to be HK :o

Yes my role models are people I actually know I think although having said that I find autobiographies and biographies very inspiring.

Another heroine of mine is Rosalind Franklin for the pioneering work she did on DNA. I'm so glad she has a university in Chicago named after her :)

Female pioneers in any field I'm interested in are inspiring - George Eliot, Gertrude Jekyll, Mary Wollstonecraft, even Florence Nightingale (although she was a bit bonkers)

Amelia Fletcher.

Chief economist at the office of fair trading by day, popstar by night!