The Importance of Female Role Models

When I was a kid, I enjoyed running around with our neighbours' kids, climbing trees and playing soccer. I would wear shorts and running shoes because it was more comfortable and I would refuse any of my mother attempts to dress me in pretty girlie clothes.  For this and other reasons, she would sometimes tell me I should have been borne a boy because I didn't fit the narrow narrative she had of a girl. In my mother's eyes, girls were supposed to look pretty, wear cute dresses and have nice long hair. I rebelled and eventually she was okay with it. 

Many more years later, as I was working towards my master's degree, I had a discussion with a fellow class mate about philosophy and specifically female philosophers. He made an argument that women were not smart enough because he didn't hear of any famous female philosophers. And neither did I, but I knew his logic was flawed. So I started researching female philosophers and I did come up with a few names (here), which lead me into thinking about female scientists and mathematicians and politicians. It made me realize that for centuries women have been the most marginalized and oppressed group in the world, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, geography. Being a woman was (and to some extend in some countries and communities still is to-day) a burden, a problem, a root cause for family shame.

I also realized that growing up, I didn't have any positive female role models that I could relate to and at school, we didn't learn much about famous historic females. There were a few mentions of Cleopatra, Maria Theresa and Catherine the Great but that was all. Much later on I realized that while history is a very fascinating subject to study, it is also quite subjective because it is written and interpreted from a specific perspective, which is usually self-serving. Growing up in Central, post-communist Europe, I would study history as it was interpreted and sometimes embellished by white male historians who needed to justify European colonization efforts. And on top of that, women were somewhat erased from the history books I read even though they played a crucial role around the globe (Harriet Tubman, Ada Lovelace, Amantine Dupin aka George Sand, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Jane Goodall, Joan of Arc, just to name a very few of them but the list goes on and on). It skewed my image of women's accomplishments and their contribution to the science, history, math, literature and art. 

And so I continuously have to educate myself on these topics so next time someone claims women's presence lacks in certain fields due to our inferior brain capacity, I will be more prepared and educated to argue back. In my opinion, the process of introducing female role models into our lives should  begin at a very early age so both girls and boys alike are taught that women can aspire and accomplish whatever they set their minds to and get the credit they deserve without having to make compromises  or sacrifice their personal lives, dignity, dreams, safety .... you know, just like men can do.

Further material to read/listen to:

• The Everyday Sexism Project 
• Chimamanda Adichie - Why We Should All be Feminists - Ted Talk
• Pay equity statistics in Canada (2018)
• Pay gap in Canada (2015)

Also, here is a link to my episode on feminism - here.