Mega-Mindy

Today at the train station I saw a young girl (maybe eight or nine years old) dressed up in a full Mega Mindy outfit, glowing pink body suit, logo and all. Mega Mindy is all the rage among young Flemings. She is the alter ego of shy Mieke, a police officer who when villains threaten puts on pink (including a mask which is even more useless than that of most superheroes at concealing her secret identity) and leaps into action. She seems to be both lauded as a positive role model for Belgian girls (being both pink and sassy, as opposed to the incompetent men in the series), and at the same time rather male-orientated (she does it all to gain the love of useless Toby). Perhaps it is indicative of women's rights in Belgium? The legal protections are excellent, education of women is probably even better than that of men and young women are certainly competing equally with men when entering the workforce. Yet at the same time there seems to be a lot of social pressure on women to be the home-makers and child carers in a relationship (even when both are working), so workforce participation among women is much lower and few women feel they have the time to stay in professional careers long enough to be able to rise to the top levels.