Female Role Models To Inspire Your Daughters

If you want to be successful, just find someone who is already successful at what you want to do, and model them.

Quite a good idea, don't you think?

Except what if you don't yet know what you want to do?

Or maybe you just want to feel inspired and motivated by women who have achieved success, defied the odds, made a difference in the world, stood up and been counted.

I was asked recently who I would choose as a role model for my daughter, if I had one. (daughter, that is!) Without thinking I immediately replied "Amal Clooney". Because she is brilliant, accomplished, multi lingual, and long before marrying the chairman she was making an important mark on the world.

There are so many mixed messages out there for teenage girls today. Success and notoriety get confused - why work hard at building a career when a sex tape can propel you into reality TV shows, millions of dollars, and a spot standing next to Beyonce, who did put in years of hard work to achieve her success?

All women need to have other women to look up to, to be inspired by, to admire.

So today, on the eve of this blog hitting one million, let's look at a varied assortment of

Female Role Models To Inspire Your Daughters.

1. Amal (Alamuddin) Clooney

Amal leaving her hotel in Athens for a meeting with Greece's Minister of Culture

Born in Beirut and raised in England Amal is a lawyer, author and activist specializing in international law, extradition, human rights, and criminal law. She is fluent in English, Arabic and French, and long before marrying Clooney was living her life on the world stage. Frankly, she is fantastic.

It should be noted too that Clooney didn't catch her because he was a movie star, he caught her in spite of being a movie star.

Amal pre-Clooney

2. Malala Yousafzai

As a young girl Malala Yousafzai defied the Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be allowed to have an education. In 2008 she gave a speech in Peshawar, Pakistan entitled " How Dare The Taliban Take Away My Basic Right To Education". In 2009 under a pseudonym she began blogging for the BBC about living with the threat of the Taliban denying her education, but was outed in December of that year.

She continued to speak out about education for girls and in 2011 was nominated for The International Children's Peace Prize.

In 2012 a Taliban gunman boarded her bus, asked which girl was Malala, and shot her in the head. 

She has made a full recovery, and in 2014 became the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

This month her biographical documentary He Called Me Malala opens in theaters nationwide.

Order her book, I Am Malala here

3. Danica Patrick.

Apparently no one told Danica Patrick that racing is a man's sport.

Danica made it to the big leagues racing in the Indy Racing League and now in Nascar's Sprint Cup, where as the only female she buckles in each weekend, qualifies and then races against 40+ high testosterone, aggressive men at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. Danica had to earn the respect of her fellow racers, and had to earn her way into Nascar's top tier, where skill, strategy and lightening fast reflexes are a pre-requisite. 

4. Angelina Jolie

Yes she is perhaps the most beautiful woman in the world, and yes she is a movie star and now also a movie director, but part of what makes Angelina Jolie so incredibly compelling is her dedication to her work as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, and now Special Envoy.

Plenty of celebrities lend their names and faces to good causes, but Jolie's commitment to the plight of refugees, her genuine human interest and resolve to help and publicize and advocate for uprooted people is more than inspiring. 

Jolie visiting refugees in Afghanistan

With more than 40 trips to some of the most remote regions of the world to visit and draw attention to the suffering of refugees, Angelina has an incredible understanding of global displacement issues, and is able to represent the High Comissioner at the diplomatic level. 

Most pretty movie stars can't do that.

5. Leandra Medine of The Man Repeller

Leandra Medine on The Coveteur

Blogger Leandra Medine is known for her hilarious blog about serious fashion, which premiered in 2010. Medine has been able to parlay her love of "man repelling" fashion into big business. Forbes named her one of their "Top 30 Under 30", The Man Repeller was one of TIME's Top 25 Blogs of 2012, and Medine also topped Adweek's "Fashion Power 25", even beating Vogue magazine's Anna Wintour.

Leandra Medine's voice is so influential, and so powerful in the fashion industry, her currency is so strong that the 26 year old blogger is now represented by mega agency CAA.  

She is a fantastic example of a girl who has taken a passion and turned it into something massively successful. She wears it her way, and she did it her way.

Leandra Medine wwearing it her way, via Pop Sugar

Want more? Check out the Zoe Report's 15 Inspiring Women To Watch Now and Forbes' 30 Utterly Inspiring Women