Young Women and Girls Need to See Positive Female Role Models – Professor Hope

University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor, Donna P. Hope, is highlighting the importance of elevating positive female role models in the society.

She argued that shining a light on accomplished females creates powerful images for women and girls, empowering them to pursue their dreams.

“The power of images is very important… in our thrust to empower and to lead and to guide and mentor,” she noted.

The Professor of Culture, Gender, and Society, was delivering the keynote address at the recent International Women’s Day event, organised by the Bureau of Gender Affairs (BGA), which was held at the Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston.

She contended that through social media and the Internet, more girls have access to a wide range of positive female influencers.

“There are wider latitudes of imaging and imagination for women and girls who seek to find role models and heroines whom they can emulate,” she said.

“[There are] females in politics, media, justice, education, entertainment, who provide young women “with the images that are helping them to power the visualisations of their own lives,” she added.

Professor Hope hailed Paula Llewellyn, who is the first woman to become Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in Jamaica.

Turning to the legacy of women in politics, Professor Hope said that from Iris Collins becoming the first female elected to Parliament in 1944, to Madam Rose Leon, becoming the first female appointed to the Cabinet in 1953, the number of women serving in politics in Jamaica continues to rise.

She noted that the proportion of women in the House of Representatives reached 15 per cent for the first time in 2016, with 12 out of 63 members, and by 2020 it had reached 29 per cent, with 18 out of 63 members.

While commending the progress made, Professor Hope said, “we must continue to pull for relatable and accessible models of empowered women so that these stand at the forefront of the minds of our young women and girls,” while lauding female athletes, and popular female entertainers who have been successful in a male-dominated industry.

Several women were recognised at the event for being the first to head various institutions.

These include Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Fayval Williams; Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator the Hon. Kamina Johnson Smith; Cabinet Secretary, Audrey Sewell; Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), Vice Admiral Antonette Wemyss-Gorman; and retired Children’s Advocate, Mary Clarke.