How far?

Early this morning as my husband and I were walking in the mall, I stopped to look in the window of a big name store. He knows that I like to know what is in style and who is wearing what.  He also gives his input about today's fashion know how that he picks up from watching the television. He told me that Kim Basinger's  daughter looks quite mature for her age, although Kim Basinger still looks very young herself. I told him that I am not surprised as I am sure models keep themselves in good health. Then I almost bit my tongue as I remembered my parents telling me that only about five percent of girls who want to be models make it in the profession and the rest struggle hard to even survive, some even compromise their dignity and belief. I even asked my mom about the wrong impression we get from watching the models being admired by the general population and young girls wanting to look like them. She assured me that there was nothing wrong to wear fashionable clothes and to some extent look pleasing to the eyes. That always bothered me. Looking good is one thing but in order to look pleasing to the eyes, how far are we expected to do?
One of my former co-workers who is from Russia says that it is more important for a woman to look nice than for a man. I always told her that it is important that we dress according to the job that we do, no matter who we are. It  was very easy for me to walk and work at my job as a vendor auditor, but in customer service it was just as hard. I also had started resenting what men could get away wearing.
How far have we come as women in work force? It is hard to say without statistics and demographics. All I would like from this world as a woman is for people to look at us women as human beings. I would like men to not be threatened by us if we are more educated than they are nor to look down upon us if we are not. We could be homemakers and take motherhood seriously for sometime and be in a profession in later years or be professional now and be homemakers and mothers in later years.
In the television show "Carrie Dairies" the prequel to the HBO "Sex in the City", the high school junior gives more importance to what she wants to do, then to what her dad wanted her to do. This show takes place in the early eighties. It reminds me of a friend whose daughter sounded very independent. She too was in high school then and said that she will expect her husband to help out in the house as she will have to work.
I was lucky enough not to have educational loans. Today a lot of young women have to pay back their educational loans, so the old theory of our Indian culture that a woman's place is at home will not be practical.
Anna Nicole Smith's life was tragic but her daughter is beautiful. She may be modelling right now, but I hope that she does what she wants to do rather than what the world is expecting her to do. If she models, it should be for herself, if she does not it should be for herself too. I would say the same for the daughter of Cindy Crawford who seems to be pretty level headed..