tealin: (Default)
[personal profile] tealin
I've put a question to the Internet – or at least the female faction thereof – to hunt down something that has been niggling at me for years. There seems to be an assumption that girls/women need to be inspired by other girls/women to pick up an interest/hobby/career. While I do not contest the argument that representation and gender equality/visibility are important, I certainly had no trouble being inspired by men, real or otherwise – the few females on my radar seemed rather boring by comparison. I know this must be true of others, so I'm trying to find out:

Do you identify as female?

Have you ever been inspired into an interest, hobby, or career by a male person, fictional or nonfictional?

(For example, getting into linguistics because of Atlantis or Stargate SG1, or sailing via Pirates of the Carribbean or Master and Commander.)

I would very much like to hear from you! If you're on Tumblr, you can reply and/or reblog the post there or reply anonymously to this post. (Or onymously, if you prefer, but you don't need to be a Dreamwidth member to comment, is my point.)

If you don't count yourself as female, please spread the word so I can get as much feedback as possible!

Date: 2018-05-23 09:23 am (UTC)
lumiere42: (Default)
From: [personal profile] lumiere42
Yup! :)

Of course, Cherry & the gang - for writing PolarBook

Influences that led me to writing horror specifically:
John Bellairs
Stephen King
Harlan Ellison
David Lynch & Mark Frost (for 'Twin Peaks')

Date: 2018-05-23 12:25 pm (UTC)
vae: (Leverage: text: age of the geek)
From: [personal profile] vae
I went into programming because my dad and maternal grandfather did it.

Date: 2018-05-23 08:06 pm (UTC)
in_the_bottle: (Hiddles)
From: [personal profile] in_the_bottle
I was thinking stickfighting, but that was Teyla in Atlantis, and not a male character so I don't think I'm that much help. I honestly don't think I've been inspired to do anything by any characters other than the whole stickfighting thing. Maybe I'm just not thinking hard enough...

Date: 2018-05-23 11:39 pm (UTC)
out_there: B-Day Present '05 (Default)
From: [personal profile] out_there
Possibly not, but my main hobbies are writing (fandom, highly female activity even if most of the characters I write are male). My profession (accounting) was a combination of studies being relatively easy for me and probably being inspired by Mum's stories of bookkeeping. But I'm sure that a lot of women who end up in STEM fields were probably inspired by men...

Date: 2018-05-24 01:52 am (UTC)
tcreynolds: (autumn)
From: [personal profile] tcreynolds
All the animators I knew before going to college were male. Growing up I had zero female role models and felt that if I wanted to do fun things I needed to hang out with boys; I've always been a tomboy. "Female" things like makeup, dresses, homemaking and boys never interested me, much to the disappointment of female relatives. I do consider myself fully female, however! Just a weird one. Teenaged me liked all the things that guys like, so I did those things, and screw the rest of the human race who said I shouldn't. I learned to mostly reject society for those reasons. I get along better with animals and prefer solo outdoorsy activities like hiking and gardening.

Date: 2018-05-24 03:04 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I consider being a musician/composer my hobby, and most of my musical inspiration has come from male composers (film composition/classical music being overwhelmingly dominated by male composers.) However, my career is as a therapist, which is largely female dominated, and I suppose most of my therapist role models have been women.
-K

Date: 2018-05-25 01:51 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Writing (on my own for ever), mythology, Arthuriana, calligraphy -- JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis
Film (went to school for it; got a BFA in it) -- Peter Jackson's adaptations of Tolkien
Animation (secretly wanted to work as a writer in animation because of) -- Walt Disney, Hayao Miyazaki

Date: 2018-05-28 02:54 pm (UTC)
graculus: (oh please)
From: [personal profile] graculus
Saw this mentioned on Tumblr but that's such a pain for replying... okay, thinking about it, the most obvious example is that one of the reasons I learned Russian because of Illya Kuryakin and later, Alex Krycek.

I've also, more recently, taken up fencing at the grand age of 49 and the number of people at my club (male and female alike) who cite the Musketeers as an inspiration is probably a surprise to literally nobody.

Date: 2018-05-28 08:21 pm (UTC)
aris_tgd: Shadow ships, "We could tangle spiders in the webs you weave." (Tangle Spiders Shadows)
From: [personal profile] aris_tgd
Here via [personal profile] copperbadge and RFM, and I definitely got into calligraphy because of Lloyd Reynolds, but I'm also very glad that the community I found was fairly gender-balanced.

I'm also fairly lucky that I've never run into "Girls can't do ___," which is I think one of the main reasons to have inspirational women in our lives, to counteract that particular toxicity. I knew from a young age that there were women who were scientists, women who were writers, women who were any number of other things I was interested in. That helped.

Date: 2018-05-28 10:32 pm (UTC)
lebannen: needlepoint compass rose (piraticon)
From: [personal profile] lebannen
I come from a small place with a strong maritime background. Growing up, working on the water in any capacity was just Not Something Girls Did; I don't know that there was ever explicitly a message of Girls Can't Do That, but there was certainly not an assumption that girls would get involved in anything beyond a recreational level, and then usually as a crew member rather than a skipper. Coming from a family of fishermen, I could steer a boat, row a small boat and tie it up, but not start an outboard engine or put a boat back on its moorings. I may have wanted to be Captain Nancy from Swallows and Amazons, but my involvement with the local dinghy sailing club lasted about a month, and even later on when I had friends who sailed, I never asked to go out on their boats.

I'm now a professional seafarer, working on a vessel trading internationally. The career training path I took was one followed by one or two of the guys from school in most years, and I went into it (as a mature student) specifically after talking to a guy I knew who had also done it as a mature student. It wasn't until la few years after I qualified that anyone pointed out to me that I was the first woman from our area to do that course; I'm aware of another woman from the area who since qualified and worked at sea for a few years, and another who dropped out of the course as a trainee (the course has a fairly high dropout rate for both male and female trainees, so, not unusual - my college class was pretty unusual that we were 20% female, all the women qualified, and ten years later two of us are still at sea).

I don't know that I would particularly consider any of the individual guys I know as much of an inspiration, though, so I don't know how much it fits with what you're looking for - it was more a case of 'well, if he managed to do it and get a job, I don't see why I wouldn't be able to'.

Date: 2018-05-29 06:24 pm (UTC)
stasia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] stasia
Well, I certainly identify as female.

I'm interested in space, astronomy, and all things Out There because of my grandfather, who was similarly interested and showed me all he could about it. We spent many many hours in planetariae, and poring over books of astronomy (if you've never read the book The Stars by HA Rey (the author of the Curious George books), you totally should look it up), and talking about space. His influence is a large part of why I love the night sky (and space and space travel and so on. He'd be dismayed that it's furthered my interest in science fiction, but... :D )

Date: 2018-06-06 01:36 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I identify as female.

I was inspired in the past by a male professor to earn my degree in Literature. He was an exceptional being that was LGBTQ+ and very nurturing.

As far as hobbies I was also inspired by my grandfather to learn how to knit and sew. As I got older, I found that women were the most inspiring for my crafting and craftivism.

There isn't really a "need" per say to be inspired by other girls/women for an interest to be formed into something that you are passionate about. Yet, in my own experience, I have found that when I read and listen to women writing about their experiences I find that it is in fact easier for myself to be inspired to write and find my own voice.

Hope this helps.

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