Diana... the icon we most admire
PRINCESS Diana has been named as the most inspiring woman of all time in a poll to mark International Women’s Day today.
Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in 1997, was the top choice among 2,000 women questioned about female icons.
She beat off stiff competition from suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, nurse Florence Nightingale, missionary Mother Teresa, the Queen and Elizabeth I.
Also in the top 10 were Britain’s first woman prime minister Margaret Thatcher and scientist Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, actress Marilyn Monroe and martyr Joan of Arc.
The People’s Princess also topped the poll for most inspir- ing woman of the 1980s. She was joined by actress Elizabeth Taylor in the 1950s, model Twiggy in the 1960s and singer Dusty Springfield in the 1970s.
Pop stars the Spice Girls made it in the 1990s, author JK Rowling in the 2000s, and 18- year- old women’s rights campaigner Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Prize, in the 2010s. However, almost half of those questioned in the poll voted their mother as the most inspiring woman for them.
The current decade was hailed as the best to be a woman, with 50 per cent of those questioned acknowledging that they have more rights than in any other decade and that women “can have it all”. However, almost 44 per cent voted for the more traditional Fifties, saying that this era was firmly focused on the family.
Among the over- 70s, however, the best decade was the freethinking Sixties.
Intelligence and thoughtfulness were the attributes most admired by almost two- thirds.
Some 15 per cent voted bravery as the most admired attribute. Beauty was the least admired quality.
Grace McMillan, of online gaming company Foxy Bingo, which commissioned the survey, said: “From royalty to activists or pop stars to authors, women truly are an inspiration, which is why celebrating International Women’s Day is just so important.”