I think obviously the media need to help promote the game and make it bigger so the younger girls have women role models to look up to and try and aspire to instead of just male footballers.
I’m not paid to be a role model, parents should be role models.
I grew up looking up a lot to ’90s supermodels like Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell. I just thought those women were such cool role models because they had a good body ideal, too.
In the 1980s, there weren’t a lot of role models for gay teenagers.
I wouldn’t say there’s a need for the Spice Girls, but I’d say there’s a place for the Spice Girls. There’s certainly a place for them, but you don’t promote the Spice Girls at the expense of promoting what I think are good role models for girls. You need to create some kind of equality.
Sometimes, for girls, it’s about building confidence and giving them a can-do attitude. It’s seeing role models, people like yourselves, doing those jobs and achieving them, just to say, ‘I can do that.’
My role models have kept on changing.
I didn’t see a lot of role models or women who looked like me on screen when I was growing up. For me, one thing that changed all of that was seeing Keke Palmer in ‘Akeelah and The Bee.’ That film made me realize that I wasn’t an alien.
I didn’t grow up with a lot of role models necessarily when I started out – there weren’t many people who looked like me on TV. Not in England.
I think the hardest thing is that all of us would love to just stick to sports – but if you want us to be role models to kids, then you need to stand for more than just sports.
It is important for children to grow up in a world where there are all kinds of adults and role models around them, for them to know it’s not just parents and people who are parents that care about them, but that there are people who are living other kinds of lives.
Walking out of that curtain and watching the reaction of the crowd, who may cheer for or boo you, is a kick. It’s addictive and helps us put smiles on children’s faces by being huge role models for young girls and boys.
The most important role models should and could be parents and teachers. But that said, once you’re a teenager you’ve probably gotten as much of an example from your parents as you’re going to.
We need role models who are going to break the mold.
Young men, more than anything, need good role models in their lives.
The expectation was I would get married and become a mother and settle down. We didn’t have any role models. We saw teachers and doctors and nurses, but I’m not a teacher, and there was no possibility of being a doctor or a nurse. I had to work and find my own way.
If I look at my era, you looked at the black players who were playing then and there weren’t many – Clyde Best… Certainly as each generation has gone, there have been role models for young black players to aspire to.
Our goal was to win, to win a Super Bowl, but also to win in the right way, to be role models to our community, to represent Indianapolis, the state of Indiana and the National Football League.
Growing up as a South Asian-American, I didn’t have any female role models.
A lot of people say television holds up a mirror to life, and that’s why you see all the drug busts and the killings and the seamier side of life. I personally take the view that it’s not sufficient to portray only negative role models. It’s not enough to say ‘no’ to drugs. What do you say ‘yes’ to?
I guess rock stars are role models for the kids who listen to that music. My role models have all been geologists – you know, the guys who are doing fieldwork until they’re 70.
The American people don’t believe politicians. They don’t believe business leaders or Hollywood celebrities or athletes or other supposed role models. And they certainly don’t believe the news media.
People need role models, and they need to feel that there’s this opportunity to learn. They need to have people that will stick up for them. I want to be a part of that.
I have always loved Reese Witherspoon and Amy Adams as role models – I read all their interviews and agree with the fundamentals of how they manage the limelight and also how they look and carry themselves. A huge part of beauty is how you carry yourself and how you deal with certain situations.
Since 1987, there are now many more of us as at the higher levels with families, so I think, as role models, we are encouraging more women to stay within banking and rise up through the ranks.
I have role models, but I take the attributes of the people that I admire, and I use them to create my best self.
I think that my biggest role models are people that have maybe struggled for a while and then finally gotten to their destination.
I did gymnastics, I wanted to be like Dominique Dawes. But the good think about role models is that you don’t just have them when you are kid. My role models from WWE came when I was older. When I was 27, my role models from WWE became Jacqueline and Beth Phoenix.
People always ask me who my role models are and who I want to be like, and I don’t wanna be like anybody; I wanna be me. I look up to a lot of people, and they have had great influences on me, but I wanna be original and different.
So many black kids aspire to be entertainers or professional athletes because those are the only role models they see that look like them. There are only 300 jobs in the NBA but an endless amount of opportunities as an entrepreneur. With enough hustle, entrepreneurship opens doors to a world of opportunities.
I have been watching how Indian women are forced to do certain things, as the stories of sacrifice and devotion in mythology demand from them. And then there are inspiring stories about women like the Rani of Jhansi that offer women refreshing role models.
My role models were from track-and-field – Florence Griffith Joyner, Gail Devers.
My role models in the business were the older guys on my team when I first got there: Gray Scott, Adrian Smith, Roland Taylor. These were the guys who took me under their wing, and really schooled me in terms of what the business was about.
I copied John Lennon; I copied a bit of David Bowie. It’s such a shame, and I’m so glad that now young girls have so many different role models in all different walks of life.
Especially in the world of fantasy and superheroes, it’s great to have role models that aren’t in skimpy little outfits, in impossible poses. That’s so important for young women.
Growing up, I didn’t have older sisters or many strong female role models to look up to. Being an adult now and looking back, I realize how much I wanted someone like that.
TV is a medium with a wide reach and viewers consider actors role models. Hence, one must realize the responsibility of portraying a certain character.
As an African-American male born with a couple of strikes against you because of your skin color, I think it’s very, very important to have some positive role models around, especially male influences.
I believe that everybody has the right to view his or her own body as a palette. However, I think intellectuals should at least try to be role models.
