Oh Role Model Where Art Thou?

I've been thinking about the little girls in my life lately. My niece, my God-daughter, her big sister. All sharp as tacks, all fizzing with energy, tenacity and determination. I've been thinking about who they'll grow up to be and the lives they will lead. Even with a combined age of less than 15, each one of them already shows the personality, smarts and potential to be something really great. At my God-daughter's christening I gave a speech about how I aimed (like any good Fairy Godmother) to help her make her wishes come true. Now her personality is really taking shape I find myself pondering what those wishes might be...


At work, I'm about to launch a leadership programme and have been thinking about role models to start a debate about the types of leaders we want to be. Mid brainstorm, something really depressing struck me. My list of leaders to start a discussion includes Barack Obama, Clive Woodward, Alex Ferguson, Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair, Winston Churchill... 


Are you there yet?  Where are the women who have inspired and galvanised people to achieve amazing things, who have embodied the spirit of a time, or created and led a winning team? I'm sure some of you will refer me to Pankhurst or Thatcher, but a) they aren't role models for female leadership today and b) two? in a few hundred years? really? I'm struggling, I really am. 


Is it any wonder that so many young women lack a breadth of ambition? I despair when I hear of girls who aspire only to have a baby and their own flat, or (slightly more stretching) be a model/Big Brother contestant/WAG. On Jamie Oliver's Dream School there was a teenage girl called Danielle. She was sharp, considered, analytical and spoke out intelligently regularly in class - she had real potential. I noticed recently that she's stayed in contact with one of the celebrity teachers and thought 'great - she is making the most of her opportunity'. Then I saw her twitter page and my heart sank - another airbrushed glamour shot, another bottle-blonde teenage girl with aspirations to model and act in soap operas. Another opportunity to aim so much higher missed because of a genuine lack of women demonstrating the alternatives. 


On the Apprentice this week the choice of female role models was slim - nasty, self-centred and everso slightly delusional Melody, or boring, self-centred and everso slightly delusional Zoe. This morning the tabloids are full of news about how Cheryl Cole has given up work, gone back to her lyin' cheatin' husband and is 'happier than she's ever been' because of it. They seem to have missed the rather bigger news story that we have all travelled back in time to the 1950's. 


The other thing that grates me about the lack of female role models is how few women seem to want to take that mantle. I'm yet to meet a woman in the workplace in a position of authority who genuinely acts to help other women progress. I've met those who shoot other women down, who undermine them, or who become defensive and negative at the thought of another female in the business 'pride'. But I'm yet to meet a successful, powerful woman who demonstrates real leadership qualities and who wants to help other women get there too. And it seems to be echoed in popular culture - most of the Victoria Beckham bashers are women, magazines like Heat and Now regularly run features pointing out physical flaws in female celebs. Even the broadsheet journalists get in on the act every so often - India Knight regularly takes a pop at Gwyneth Paltrow on twitter. And this week the hideous dressing down meted out by a step-mother-in-law to her step-daughter-in-law to-be went viral. There are few things uglier than an older woman who should know better taking out her fear, jealousy and insecurity on a younger female, yet its a phenomena seemingly on the rise.


We have fewer women in the cabinet now than any other western democracy . Coventry University research last month found that budget cuts will affect women more than twice as much as men. Women make up less than 12% of Boards in the top 300 European businesses. With those kind of odds against us, surely those that are successful and have the benefit of experience have a responsibility not to be pulling the ladder up behind them but to reach back down and help others climb? 


Nadine Dorries caused a furore last month by pushing for abstinence to be taught to girls in Sex Ed. She misses the point. Girls who get pregnant in their teens don't need to be taught abstinence - they need to be taught to think bigger. They can say 'no' or they can say 'only with a condom thanks' and they should be saying it not because they've been morally browbeaten into being 'good girls' but because they have plans to study, to travel, to achieve great things. If we want to address teenage pregnancy maybe we need to look beyond Sex Ed. Maybe we should be looking at the quality of careers guidance we give teenagers? Maybe we should look at how we can build confidence and ambition in young people, particularly young women, who seem to do so much better than boys at school, but who don't seem to fulfil that potential later in life. Dream School's Danielle is a case in point - holding her own in conversations about politics with Alastair Campbell, but declaring on her twitter profile "I'm a model and actress". Another one bites the dust.


By painting a picture of a future that's possible if they just raise their eyes beyond the horizon they think they see, we could address more than just teenage pregnancy.  We might create fewer Big Brother contestants and more research scientists, fewer WAGs and more authors, fewer glamour models and more leaders of commerce, industry and woman-kind. We might even redress the balance of women in Boardrooms and the Houses of Parliament. I'm not sure if I'm old enough or experienced enough to count as a role model, but if I can paint that picture with enough clarity and colour for my niece, my god-daughter and her sister to make it a vision of their future, I reckon I'd count that as success.