Kids These Days:

Everyone needs a role model, particularly kids, but there may be no group in greater need of sound role models than girls and young women.

Females in America are discriminated against and judged more than any other group.

Shirley Chisholm, the late congresswoman from New York said, “I’ve always met more discrimination being a woman than being black,” and “Of my two ‘handicaps’ being female put more obstacles in my path than being black.”

Chisholm’s description of her gender is accurate: Being female in America today is a handicap.

Despite that, America is still the best place in the world for a woman to achieve status at par with men. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent run for the presidency showed that America is changing.

“For some reason, the world undervalues what girls and women bring to the table,” said Steve Lampron, the director of operations for the Boys & Girls Club of Costa Mesa and Newport Beach. “When you undervalue them, society suffers.”

Lampron said it is a struggle sometimes to get girls to understand that they do not have to adhere to any pre-conceived notions about their roles in society.

[Some girls] want to be the homemaker and the one to raise the kids. Yes, they can do that, but they can also be the doctors and lawyers and leaders of this country.”

True, but women still have further to go than men to reach that goal.

Recently, a couple of women emerged not as role models, but as examples of how women should handle personal controversy.

The first and best example was from Kim Kardashian, a celebrity who is known for something, but I am not sure what it is. The only things I know about Kardashian are that she is the daughter of the late Robert Kardashian, one of the attorneys who helped O.J. Simpson get acquitted in his 1994 murder trial, and that her boyfriend is football player Reggie Bush.

Other than that, I see her only online as a headline about appearing on red carpets here and there.

Last March, Kardashian appeared on the cover of a magazine called “Complex.” On the magazine’s website, a photo of Kardashian showing a little cellulite in her legs was accidentally posted, then removed, but not before it was circulated around the world.

Kardashian had several options. She could have threatened to sue Complex, she could have claimed the photos were manipulated to embarrass her, or she could have cut the gossip mill off at the knees, which is exactly what she did.

“So what, I have a little cellulite,” Kardashian said.

Good for you.

Next up is a woman who is also not a role model, but who had a flash of bravery and brilliance.

Like Kardashian, I have no idea why Denise Richards is famous. She was in a good thriller years ago called “Wild Things,” and then she had a part in a James Bond movie. But after that, I lost track of her.

Last week, Richards was in Chicago at a Cubs game and sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch. Except that Richards didn’t sing the song, she mangled it. Not only does she not have a singing voice, it appears on the video that she had to rely on a cheat sheet to remember the words.

The video of this tragedy is at www.youtube.com/ watch?v=E4T-VabqdDA.

When it was over, Richards, like Kardashian, had some options. She could have run and hid, she could have blamed it on a faulty sound system, or she could have shrugged it off, which is exactly what she did.

“People are trashing my singing. I don’t care. I never said I could sing! I had fun, and we had a great event.”

Good for you, too.

Now let’s make one thing perfectly clear: I don’t hold up either of these women as role models. But their responses to the media on these nothing events are noteworthy and are the types of reactions that will help girls and young women understand that they are in complete control of their self-worth and their reputations.

It’s too bad that neither Kardashian nor Richards seized the moment to bring this message to girls. It would have been a far more valuable contribution than whatever it is that they do.

STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and a freelance writer. Send story ideas to dailypilot@latimes.com .