Booker prize winner Arundhati Roy, who was sent to Tihar jail for a day by the Supreme Court for contempt last week and Spice girl Victoria Beckham have been described as role models for young British women by a British daily.
"As role models for young British women, they share inspiring qualities," the Sunday Times observed on Sunday.
"Beautiful, brave and intellectual, Arundhati Roy has all the essential credentials for a female role model par excellence," the newspaper said.
With a "politically correct" background where she had a mother "who was a struggling social activist and a childhood of limited schooling", the report said her book The God of Small Things, a Booker prize winner, was her success.
"Then last week she achieved martyrdom. After the involvement in a political protest, the Supreme Court found her guilty of criminal contempt, sentencing her to one day in 'symbolic imprisonment'".
A world away from Roy's cell, another female role model Victoria Beckham, the champion of "girl power", showed off her 3 million pound Hertfordshire mansion last week, and more than eight million eager viewers tuned in to watch the television documentary
Being Victoria Beckham.
Twenty-seven-year old Beckham and 40-year-old Roy are oceans apart, physically, culturally and intellectually, the report said.
Surely one is full of eastern mystery and depth, while the other epitomises western obsession with the shallows of glamour, the newspaper admitted adding "as role models for modern women, Roy and Beckham share qualities that appeal to missions across both
cultures".
"She (Roy) has intellectual credibility, morality, strength of character," said Claire Evans, a marketing executive from London and fan of Roy's work. "She has that Joan of Arc quality where you allow yourself to be martyred for a greater cause."
After that success she could have gone shopping, like Beckham, but instead she went protesting against environmental and social problems.
On the other hand, Beckham represents to young girls (particularly those who would like to grow up and marry David Beckham--and they are numerous) something they might achieve, if only they work hard enough and get lucky. This is far less intimidating
than wishing you had been born with Roy's gift for language, the newspaper commented.
