One's a true heroine. One's an actress. Why can't we women tell the difference? CAROL SARLER despairs as Helen Mirren is rated higher than the Queen in poll of inspiring women

  • Actress Judi Dench topped poll of inspirational women
  • Helen Mirren was second
  • The Queen only merits 28th place
  • Fictional characters are recognised while real life heroines are ignored

Look, I admire Dame Judi Dench. You admire Dame Judi Dench. In interviews, even Dame Judi gives the impression of a pleasantly high opinion of herself and her gifts.

Much the same could be said of her fellow national treasure Dame Helen Mirren. But do you think that these nicely ageing actresses are the most inspirational women ever to grace our planet?

According to a survey this week, that is exactly what we do think. 

Surprising: Queen Elizabeth II only came 28th in the poll
Pale imitation: Helen Mirren playing Her Majesty and, left, the real deal

Pale imitation: Helen Mirren playing Her Majesty and, left, the real deal

Four thousand women were asked to nominate the top 100 ‘spirited and inspiring’ women of all time and, lo, Dame Judi and Dame Helen came in as the top two.

In a cursory concession to the real world, they were followed in third place by suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, but normal order of play then resumed, with Dawn French in fourth and Joanna Lumley in fifth.

The list is one of the most depressing snapshots of the aspirations of women today that it is possible to imagine.

Unbelievably, 14 of those included are fictional characters, such as Elizabeth Bennett from Pride And Prejudice (who is at number 11), Jane Eyre (20) and — wait for it — Bridget Jones (15).

More than half owe their inclusion to their place in the ditzy worlds of showbusiness, fashion and ‘celebrity’.

There is a smattering of sportswomen —  the highest ranking, at 33, is Jessica Ennis — but I suspect even that elevated position might well owe more to her glamour than her guts.

There’s a nod to the notion that some of the 4,000 female voters watch the news: Burma’s brave opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is in the bottom 50.

And Harper Lee, whose book To Kill A Mockingbird laid bare the racism of the American Deep South, did squeak in. At number 100.

Topped the poll: Is Dame Judi Dench really the most inspirational women in the world?
Inspirational? Judi Dench played a boss of MI5 and Dawn French a vicar but what of the real women who fulfill these roles?

Inspirational? Judi Dench played a boss of MI5 and Dawn French a vicar but what of the real women who fulfill these roles?

Otherwise, there is an indecent showing for women famous for nothing more than the man they married. (Cherie Blair ‘inspirational’? Really?)

Then there’s a handful of general do-gooders, and you may make your own category for Cleopatra.
Women who have made it in business? Three. Art? One. Science? One — Marie Curie (22), just below Beyonce.

Medicine, architecture, engineering, philosophy, spiritual leadership? All zero.

As style over substance, the top 100 surpasses itself. As a measure of women’s ‘thinking’, it’s a shocker. The fixation that this purportedly representative 4,000 appear to have with celebrity and showbusiness is not lacking  in irony.

Real women and achievement lie forgotten in the rush to revere the cosmetic and make-believe.

Dame Judi Dench wins, it is assumed, thanks to acclaim for her appearance as M in the James Bond film Skyfall.

Yet Stella Rimington, who actually ran MI5, didn’t even make it on to this ‘inspirational’ list. By the same token, Dame Helen Mirren became famous as fictional Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison in TV’s Prime Suspect.

So what of Pauline Clare, Britain’s first female chief constable? She’s in the cold.

Only worthy candidate in the top five: Emmeline Pankhurst

Only worthy candidate in the top five: Emmeline Pankhurst

Dame Helen owes even more of her fame to her portrayals of the Queen. But while the actress is the runner-up in the list, the real Queen only makes it to 28 — just below Helena Bonham Carter, who played the Queen Mother in The King’s Speech.

As for Dawn French at number four, I slightly know and greatly like her. If the poll were for a smile to rival the Blackpool Illuminations, she’d have my vote. But she isn’t up there for being Dawn.

She’s up there for her role as the nation’s best-loved pretend vicar, using words written by — naturally — a man. The real-life rector of St James’s in Piccadilly, the Rev Lucy Winkett, is widely tipped to become the first Church of England woman bishop. Yet is she on the ‘inspirational’ women list? No.

But this list is nothing but a bit of fun, I hear you say. And part of me agrees with you: commissioned by Baileys, it’s there to sell you sticky booze. Nevertheless, it rankles. And here’s why.

Imagine doing the same survey of 4,000 men and asking who they find inspirational. Similar results would be inconceivable.

I’ve sat in enough rowdy pubs to know who we’d find on the list, and it certainly wouldn’t be George Clooney or Robbie Williams.

They’d go for changing the world (Apple’s Steve Jobs), stretching the boundaries of human endurance (Sir Ranulph Fiennes), business genius (Richard Branson), intellectual brilliance (Stephen Hawking), power-mongering (Bernie Ecclestone), politics (oh, go on, you list them) and, by the gallon, sport: Tiger Woods, Wayne Rooney, Andy Murray.

Men gaze with awe and admiration upon those who’ve grafted for their fortunes. But if women are asked whether they aspire to be gravel-voiced, 18-hour-working-day businesswoman Hilary Devey or the few hours here-and-there Judi Dench, they prefer the easier route any day: scant effort for maximum reward.

TOP FIVE INSPIRATIONAL WOMEN ACCORDING TO THE POLL

  1. Judi Dench

  2. Helen Mirren

  3. Emmeline Pankhurst

  4. Dawn French

  5. Joanna Lumley

And don’t tell me Devey doesn’t work ten times harder than Dench. As Katharine Hepburn famously pointed out, acting isn’t difficult: ‘Shirley Temple could do it when she was four.’

I’ve worked in repertory theatre and have produced feature-length TV drama and I promise that luvvies do less work, for fewer hours, then anyone else on the set.

Nice work if you can get it and all that. But what does this mean in the long term?

Most voters in the adults-only survey were mothers. Every day we hear of worried parents who despair of their otherwise clever, able, teenage girls whose ambition amounts to no more than: ‘I wanna be famous.’

Many of these modern mothers probably teach their girls some version of women’s rights.

Most of them, no doubt, do a great job of persuading the next generation to revolt the moment they perceive themselves to be treated unequally.

And I’ll bet they all do a nice line in indignation at the merest hint of a glass ceiling.

Yet when these mothers rate the ‘inspirational’ Adele, Angelina Jolie or Rihanna more highly than Angela Merkel, Virginia Woolf or Eleanor Roosevelt, we might ask what influence they bring to bear on the daughters for whom they claim to want so much more.

If mum is this much in thrall to effortless success and fairytale fortunes in make-believe worlds, what chance does even the smartest sixth-former have to resist the next time Simon Cowell brings his audition circus to town?

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