When it comes to drawing strength from someone else, the mere contact with an image, an idea, can be enough to make a difference. Katie Couric, who in 2006 became the first solo female anchor of an important evening news programme, reminisced in 2009: “I saw this woman out on her own, making a life for herself, and I always thought: I want into that.” Writer Pam Houston, recounting the journey that led to her decision not to have children, mentions the influence of her Women’s Studies professor, in 1980, “tall, elegant”, and who wore IUDs as earrings… In the United States, the protagonist of the 1970s Mary Tyler Moore Show, a happily single female journalist, was an eye-opener for many women. She meant both the vision of her own radiant self, no longer hidden by artificial dyes, and the vision of a striking white-haired woman, at a café terrace, which encouraged her to take the leap. Fashion journalist Sophie Fontanel recently wrote a book about her decision not to dye her grey hair, and called it “A Vision”. « I understand the galvanising importance of role models.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |