Does a role model need to be like me?

Despite being inspired by many posts in the wonderful #thislittlegirlisme campaign, I felt immensely uncomfortable about the statistic that 70% of girls feel more confident about their futures after hearing from women role models. I’ve reflected a lot on this over the last week, and it’s really bugging me that we feel like this. I cannot comment on what it is like growing up as a girl, so I won’t attempt to make any assumptions as to why they may think that way. However, I thought I would share my perspective by taking the chance to reflect on the dreams of a young gay man, .

Having started playing rugby at the age of 6, my burning ambition as a child was to play rugby for Wasps and for England. Now obviously at the age of 6, I didn’t know I was gay and probably didn’t even know what that meant! But I did know I was gay before I arrived at secondary school and therefore I knew well before my fantasy of playing rugby for England evolved into a real ambition into which I threw my time and energy and commitment. I had plenty of success in rugby as I grew and developed, but I also faced many challenges over the years as I chased my dream, including:

-?????????The lateness of my growth spurt which meant I had a year or so when I was getting battered by much bigger boys, which somehow, seemed to making things a bit less fun!

-?????????The difficulties in bulking up and building strength to match those around me, despite spending hours in gyms being pushed through brutal sessions by a good friend.

-?????????The struggles to fit in with the drinking culture as a young introvert who didn’t want to drink at all, let alone put away more pints on a Saturday night than most people drink in a week.

-?????????The set-backs when I didn’t get the selections or the opportunities that I thought I deserved and I agonised with doubt as to whether the success was ever going to happen.

-?????????The diagnosis of my blood-clotting disorder, which finally explained the enormous bruises that I had suffered throughout my career and why every injury took longer to recover.

All these challenges did their best to shake me from my path, but one thing that never was an issue was my sexuality. It was a massive issue in my life, and I privately wrestled with it for many years, but when it came to rugby, it never crossed my mind. There were no gay rugby players to look up to and make me believe that I could achieve my goals, but why did that matter? My sexuality has nothing to do with my speed, talent, strength, commitment or ability, so it never felt relevant to my belief of what I could achieve on the rugby field. In my grizzled middle age, I accept that this is probably a bit na?ve, and that people’s perceptions of me could have blocked the selections and opportunities that would have turned my ability into an England cap! But there is a big difference between the societal barriers that we must fight against and our individual aspirations and a sense of self-belief in what we can achieve. As a shy teenager who lacked confidence, I needed inspiration, but I didn’t need my heroes to be like me, I just needed them to be good at rugby!!!

So did I achieve my dreams? Well, as always, it depends on how you measure your success! I didn’t play for England, but I did play for the 2nd team at my beloved Wasps and even made it onto the bench as a (sadly) unused substitute for the first team in one Premier League match. In the early days of professional rugby, it was already becoming tricky to juggle my rugby with the start of my accountancy career, and so when I didn’t quite make the cut for the Wasps squad, I took that as a bit of a sign. Should I have paused my career and had another shot? Who knows? But ultimately, I chose to make rugby more of a hobby and quite happily moved on from my childhood dream with a lot of pride at what I had achieved, and no regrets about my decision.

So let’s go back to that damned statistic! Why does it bother me that 70% of girls feel more confident about their futures after hearing from women role models? It bothers me because they are too young to be thinking that way. It bothers me that we have projected the prejudices that they may possibly experience many years in the future on to those young brains. It bothers me that young people have already put themselves in a box with “similar” people, when that definition of “similar” is driven by a label and not anything deeper.

Are there barriers that get in the way of women realising their potential? Absolutely! Do we need to do everything we can to break down these barriers, and make sure their path is not blocked? For sure! But at a young age, we shouldn’t be seeing those obstacles and barriers and differences, we should just have big dreams that can be inspired by anything and anyone, however similar or different they may be to us.?

James Wyatt

Author of The Art of Discussion