Role Models and Heroines - Essay Example

My interviewee is a friend of mine. She is 21 years old. We got acquainted at the high school in Texas and got close while both of us were strangers in the USA. Today she takes major in accounting in UIUC. My friend is Christian and she leads a small group in her church. She likes arts and also she is very artistic. She visited me on the weekend and I interviewed her in my house. The interview took place late at night. Nobody interrupted us, there were only two of us and we spoke for some time.

I took short notes and analyzed them later. To my mind, the interview reveals the deep nature of the girl. She is able to objectively analyze her attitudes and preferences and she is not fanatic about anything and anyone. Though it is considered that each of us has his unique fate and we are not to keep to the beaten tracks of other people, young people do need some examples to orient at. The greatest artists had to copy earlier masters in order to develop their own styles. So it is quite normal first to choose role models in searching for your identity.

As my friend has put it, this helps girls “to stay on the right track”, to set goals and have dreams, without which development is impossible. Thinking or reading about lives or career stories of her chosen heroines, my friend is encouraged and recharged to run into her goals just as they did”My friend chooses role models and heroines according to emerging spiritual and intellectual necessities of hers. Looking at young women, who have achieved something, my friend sees what traits of character must have helped them to succeed and she learns and develops those traits.

This way she is able to set new goals at each stage of her life. In early teens my friend looked at pop-stars (as most of teenagers do). This way she acquired some notions of beauty and charm, she learnt the skills of communication, and had some naïve dreams (that develop artistic skills, on the other hand). Later she got impressed by Hillary, whose life and work served as inspiration. Today my friend wants to follow the example of her mom, the woman close to her, the one, who has succeeded in her work, but also managed to be a perfect wife and mother.

Being a leader by her nature, my friend has always oriented at women who succeeded in their career and became leaders in their fields. These women are “dignified and beautiful, inside and outside.” Confidence, charisma and leader’s abilities caught my friend’s attention and she adopted ways of thinking and behaving from her role models. My friend’s heroines are “attractive but strong women who know how to express themselves in the public as a woman.”My friend’s example demonstrates a healthy attitude towards role-models.

She doesn’t get crazy about her heroines, repeating the stupid acts of theirs. My friend is able to tell the right from not-right for her. Moreover, as a leader she realizes that being a public person makes you responsible for the lives and moral education of those following you. When many people look at you and consider your life a kind of “golden standard”, you should not let them down, causing disappointment and loss of dreams. My friend believes that having role-models is of great benefit for young girls.

In her case, her mom’s example helps her to get through the difficulties of her college life. Living separately from her family, she finds it especially difficult and stressful sometimes to concentrate on her school works. However, as she thinks of her mom, who has always worked hard, simultaneously taking care of her family with all her heart, she “can keep her head up.” This is a wonderful example of how role-models can serve for the overall good. As we can see, it is not always bad to have heroines and role-models.

If a girl has a positive approach to her life, she chooses role-models to learn from. Looking at her heroines, such a girl is able to set some concrete goals, survive and develop in difficult times and grow into a confident and successful woman, who knows what she wants from life and what her priorities are.