We’re now diving into the heart of this series, discovering together the stories of these women and what it means for them to be a woman today.
Following the path of the questions I asked them, the next one was: Which female role models have inspired you the most in your life, and why?
The reason for this question is very simple: all of us have had models we looked up to or that inspired us, from whom we “borrowed” qualities that were important in building our own identities. Whether they were our mothers, our friends, or even pop stars on TV, the point of this question was to show that we human beings are never untouched by the environment and people around us; on the contrary, the relationships we build influence us and, in turn, shape the way we perceive ourselves.
Before we begin, I’d like to make one thing clear: I chose to focus on female role models because it helped me later bring the discussion where I wanted it to go—you’ll understand in the next articles. That said, it’s obvious that male figures also influence us and can inspire us in shaping our identities as women. But since this wasn’t the central theme of this piece, I decided not to dwell on it here.
Back to us: the female role models mentioned by the women I interviewed were truly diverse—not only from one woman to another, but also very different from the answers I had expected. Since the larger aim of the interview (spoiler alert!) was to investigate how women are represented in the media, I was looking for more mainstream references—like Madonna, Lady Gaga, or Julia Roberts, just to give some examples—to understand if and how their way of being feminine, as media icons, had influenced the women I spoke with. The truth is, that goal wasn’t really achieved, because each woman chose instead to take me into her own personal world of female figures. And honestly, I can only thank them for that—because it was much richer and more interesting this way.
One of the most frequently cited figures was, unsurprisingly, the mother. On the one hand, this didn’t surprise me—after all, the mother is the very first example of femininity we encounter. But I also think that the figure of the mother, and of parents in general, is extremely ambivalent: they inspire us, yet we also want to distance ourselves from them. This contradiction didn’t come out so much in individual stories, but rather when I compared the answers, showing how differently each woman experienced her relationship with her mother.
“My mom, who was widowed at 33—I was 5 when my dad died—has been a very important woman for me. She was a fighter, and if I am who I am today, it’s thanks to her. She taught me to be autonomous and independent, to think for myself, to ask for help when I needed it, to know who I could count on and who I couldn’t.” – Angela
“First of all, my mom. She lost her own mother at the age of three [back then there weren’t even photos, so she never actually knew her], and she passed on to me, my sisters, and my brother this strong sense of family, which I still carry on. Thanks to her, I’ve continued the idea of an open family, because our home was always a reference point for my children and their friends. […] I feel I’ve done what she, in her own small way, did.” – Daniela
“Certainly when I was a child, my main role model was my mom.” – Samia
“Maybe my mom and my grandmother, the closest figures to me. I tried to do what they hadn’t done. Since I’m not a highly educated woman […] but a simpler person, I tried not to follow some examples, because I saw a lot of suffering in the women around me. My grandmother, for example, was somewhat submissive to my grandfather. My mom is divorced, and if I widen the circle to aunts and uncles, their situations weren’t much better. Though you realize it was a very common condition for women.” – Giulia
“My mom, because she’s always been a point of reference.” – Emily
Of course, mothers are not the only examples of femininity we encounter in our lives.
For Emily, for example, her closest friends have also been role models:
“I have many friends I grew up with, and I had the chance to see their evolution, just as they saw mine. I was inspired a lot by their character traits and their ways of seeing reality that I liked. And then also the older girls in my circle […] I really value asking them for advice, because they’ve already lived through what I’m going through now, just a few years earlier.”
My grandmother Maria Pia’s answer really made me smile, because as the youngest of four sisters, I expected them to have been her role models. But instead she gave me an answer I didn’t see coming, one that was both tender and powerful:
“Definitely simple people, but with a touch of refinement—that’s something I always liked. My models were always people with certain opportunities, opportunities that I myself didn’t have.”
That last sentence struck me deeply. It made me think about how aspirations still exist today, but in a very different form. Growing up just after the war, in a family that couldn’t afford luxuries, my grandmother admired people who could afford a little more. But she was also very aware that she didn’t have the same resources. I wonder if we, today, have lost some of that awareness. We don’t often seek out influences anymore—they are pushed on us constantly, many times a day. And now that everything seems possible and within reach, it can be dangerous to internalize other people’s desires, because they may pull us away from our own.
Samia expressed something quite similar:
“Now I try to absorb what I can from the women I see who I think have a special charisma, who know what they’re talking about, who know what they’re doing—even just from their gaze and their posture. I try to absorb those traits from any woman who makes me think: wow, I’d love to be like her.”
Some of the women did mention media figures.
For Anna, for example, one key role model is Stefania Andreoli, a psychotherapist who works a lot on social media, especially with adolescents and young adults:
“On social media she allows people to send her questions through her stories, and she answers them. […] She’s always been very important, especially in the world of social media where such figures are rare. She helps my generation [young people in their twenties] to face important issues, like violence or the exploitation of women on social platforms.”
Giulia, instead, has moved through different life phases with different online figures: from ClioMakeUp tutorials, to creative channels, to Marie Kondo for home organization.
“Marie Kondo really influenced that period of my life: I started reorganizing every corner of the house using her method, because I was in a moment of confusion and needed to create order. Every trick for organizing seemed like a lifesaver. So I tried different methods to see which one fit me best.”
The women she followed—whether showing how to organize a space or how to highlight your eyes with the right eyeshadow—were not only sources of inspiration, but also ways to improve her life.
“I picked up bits and pieces from all of them, and in the end, adding them together, I changed how I managed my time, friendships, activities, and how I spent my days. These women influenced me a lot, but I always tried to adapt their advice to my own routine.”
Veronica, a fan of anime and manga, found her role models there:
“I had these very naïve but strong female characters, defenders of justice. For me, it was important to be on the right side, to fight for my ideals. In high school I became a class representative, then a student council representative, so there was this side of me—tied, though, to a childlike part, with my head in the clouds. Throughout high school I lived in an idealized version of femininity, shaped by this more childish side of me.”
Daniela, instead, was inspired by “women who did a lot for society, who fought for women’s rights and for women’s place in society”—figures that helped her both as a mother and as a grandmother.
Angela emphasized independent women, a model she saw as key to her own growth:
“Female role models for me were always independent, autonomous women. By age 14 I had already learned to get by, so the idea of someone telling me what or how to do things just wasn’t part of me. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, even though I listened to advice. Independence and autonomy were the models that allowed me to grow and take ownership of my ability to do what I wanted.”
Among these figures, besides her mother, Angela also mentioned Michela Murgia, as a woman who valued female thought and individuality.
For Chiara, Jo March from Little Women was key:
“She was nonconformist, she wrote, and most of all she didn’t care about conventions. She gave me an image of freedom and possibility.”
Later she was drawn to Madonna, but her greatest inspiration is Virginia Woolf:
“Reading about her life, I discovered she too was extremely nonconformist. That has been the common thread among the women I admire: they’re nonconformists, they do more or less what they want, but most importantly, they have the courage and freedom to show it.”
Here I noticed something important: Angela’s independence had to be asserted mainly in relation to her brother, while Chiara’s came from rejecting the housewife model embodied by her female relatives and reinforced by her father’s attitude.
Angela, living with her brother in Veneto, often had to stand her ground against his views, asserting the importance of being an independent woman.
Chiara, meanwhile, grew up in an environment where women were housewives. She felt boxed in, unable to pursue things she loved simply because they weren’t “for girls.”
“As a child, I liked playing with toy cars, but then they gave them away to someone else, because they weren’t for me—they were boys’ toys. Or I wanted a mechanic’s tool set like my dad, but it wasn’t for girls. For a long time I felt I wanted to do things but couldn’t. Then, thanks also to feminism, I realized I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, and I decided to resolve it. I embraced my nonconformist side: rejecting the classic role of women. I’m not a housewife, I don’t have those qualities. I like things people wouldn’t expect, like soccer, the One Direction, or kawaii objects. I affirm this difference—though it’s not really that different, since others are like me too. But it’s not something I need to hide or be ashamed of; I enjoy showing it.”
The word nonconformist feels very ambivalent to me. On one hand, it’s empowering to feel different and to embrace that difference. On the other, it frustrates me that, to be women, we often have to feel “nonconformist”—to constantly prove our difference, our autonomy, our independence as human beings. Think about it: the connotation of nonconformist is very different when applied to a man versus a woman. For men, being different from the norm is seen as ordinary—even admirable. For women, it’s often a target for criticism and a way of belittling identity. It’s a word that burns, because it shows the two sides of the coin we have to face.
And this is precisely the aim of this series: to show that diversity is not a matter of being “nonconformist.” Diversity is part of the very nature of being human.
As you’ve seen, each woman’s experiences, environments, and role models shaped her differently. Each built her identity in a unique way, and that means there is no right or wrong path. Sharing these stories allows us to learn, to take inspiration, and to realize that the word woman only has meaning if we bring our differences into play.
As always, I’ll leave you with the same question to reflect on or respond to if you’d like:
Which female and/or male role models have inspired you the most in your life, and why?
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