Outlook - C fore survey on
21st century Indian women role models 
(Refer November 1, 2004 issue of Outlook)

Want To Be Her
Confusion at the crossroads?
Not quite. Indian women  tick-mark the one they most want to emulate.

We are a nation starved of role models. Decades of blighted hope have made this both unexamined certitude and fashionable assertion. But is it perhaps a male urban legend? When research agency Cfore conducted a focus group discussion among well-educated Delhi women—both home-makers and working women—the group did not have any trouble in coming up with 36 names of “role models for the 21st century Indian (alive) modern woman”. The names ranged from Sheila Dixit to Mallika Sherawat (“for doing what she wants in the way she wants to”), from Sushmita Sen (“for her lack of hypocrisy”) to tennis champ Sania Mirza. Cfore researchers then asked 758 women—college students, graduates and post-graduates—in Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore to rate these 36 women on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 standing for “excellent role model”. The rating of only those respondents were taken into account, who were aware of the activities of the person they were rating. The respondents also indicated which of six qualities, each of the persons they rated, possessed—success, modern outlook, independence, fame, courage and personality. The dozen women profiled, then, represent, in their diverse ways, what today’s average Indian woman looks up to and aspires to be.