Why representation matters

THE other day my sister was walking through Town with my six-year-old niece. They passed a policeman who was busy dealing with a live situation. My little niece, watching at a distance, was fascinated. My sister, ever patient and aware of how she enjoys observing, let her watch. Seeing her interest, once he had finished, the police officer came over to speak with my niece. As part of the chat, he asked her if she thought she might like to become a police officer one day. She replied very clearly and quickly that she could not become a police officer as she was a girl. Taken aback, the policeman gently explained to her that this was not the case at all and that there were plenty of girls who grew up to become police officers. My niece was surprised yet greatly reassured and I don’t think this officer realises how important this conversation will be in my niece’s view of the world as she grows up, regardless of whether she becomes a police officer or not.

We take for granted the fact that the police is open to men and women and I for one had seriously underestimated just how poorly represented female police officers must be in younger children’s books and television as well as daily life. It clearly takes a lot of repeated exposure to imprint possibility and opportunity in young children’s minds and this experience has certainly made me more mindful of how I interact with my niece. Who knows what she will decide to do in the future but the more options she understands are open to her, the better.

I thought a lot about this little story – on that particular trip I’m told my niece also got to chat to a man who was doing some work on one of the roads in the area, he was also happy to show her what he was doing, much to her delight. This reminded me of why I love living in Guernsey. In general, life is at a slower pace here than other places I have lived and most of us have the time to be able to stop what we are doing to interest, educate or inspire an inquisitive child. This is not a given elsewhere for many reasons and children definitely lose out as a result.

It also really highlighted to me just how important representation is and how early opinions are formed by our children based on whom and what they are exposed to. Had my sister been a police officer herself or had I been one, my niece would have instantly and instinctively understood that this was a role open to her in the future. A role model would be accessible to her, making it all seem possible and more importantly, normal. As it happens, she first learned this from a chance encounter.

Not long after this, this very paper coincidentally printed a fabulous profile of PC Lyndsey Bell (11 May 2023). I read that Lyndsey has done a lot of outreach work with young children, which is fantastic and clearly so very important. More of these articles highlighting different professions would be fabulous to read and great to share with the young people in our lives.

As a family we make a very conscious effort to expose my nieces to as many situations as we can but I would love us to get creative as an island in how we all share our work experiences with one another. It is not just children who need to be inspired but adults too. Many of us have aspirations to do different things with our lives and role models make all the difference when taking that leap.

We are all a product of the environment and family we are born into or raised in. We do not all follow in our parents’ or carers’ footsteps but our early ideas of what we can achieve and what opportunities are open to us are strongly influenced by what we see around us in those formative years. I grew up in a family of hairdressers (generations of them!) including my great-grandparents, who ran a barber shop on the Bridge long before I was born. I had just one uncle and one aunt who were not cutting hair and I knew very little about what they did. They probably thought I would not be interested, yet nothing could be further from the truth. How useful those conversations would have been and how helpful as my dad and I muddled through trying to understand the roles available to me as I left university. As it was, we relied on what Dad had assumed or absorbed from reading or talking to customers in his salon or I had gleaned from the odd, somewhat overwhelming, career fair.

I remember applying for work experience at JP Morgan (a huge American investment bank) when I was about 20 and having absolutely no idea what the role involved. I read a guide to investment banking on the train to London but was still none the wiser by the time I got home, despite getting through to the next round of interviews. Now I know that I overlooked roles that were a really good fit for me at that time, only finding them many years later once I understood more about what was on offer and what I was good at.

As a youngster, I considered roles such as writer or artist as mythical careers. Agatha Christie books kept my imagination whirring as a teenager but never did I think that what she did counted as a real job, yet now some of my university friends are successful poets, journalists and novelists. Science was also a mystery to me yet had I met someone energetic, fun and fascinating like the Guernsey Scientist (linktr.ee/theguernseyscientist) when I was younger, who knows how that could have inspired my future adventures in another direction (and I might have finally understood electromagnets)?

As I accidentally embarked on my first job as an accountant, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. As it happened, it was a bad fit for me and it took me a number of years of experimenting in different roles to find one that I could stick with longer term. Now, at the ripe old age of 47, I am exploring all sorts of opportunities, including writing this column, that I would never have considered as a younger person as I had no contact with anyone who worked in these areas and just couldn’t see how my face might fit.

Amusingly, the only role I have always known I could apply for as a girl based on role models when I was growing up was UK prime minister. I have yet to apply.

So, don’t dismiss the importance of the books and TV shows you encourage your child to read and watch, don’t make assumptions about which college course is best for ‘girls’ or ‘boys’ and don’t you let your family members get away with not talking to you about what they actually do for a living. No matter how boring either of you think it might be, mine them for information and contacts who do other things in life and before you know it, you’ll have opened up a whole new career path for one young person and started a powerful chain of events. We all need positive role models to show us what’s possible and we’re all great candidates for the role.