There’s a meme doing the rounds with a picture of Thor from Endgame in it, and the caption: “to all the larger guys over the moon about seeing Thor in the movie: now you know how important representation in the media is and how good it feels.”

I was chatting about it with Lady M this morning and she chuckled and asked if I’d seen a recent picture of her and some colleagues in a meeting at work on her social media. In it there’s one man and several women, and she’d taken the picture to capture a rare moment in her workplace where there were more women managers than men.

Apparently during this lively and productive meeting, the guy had said he felt a bit scared being outnumbered, and Lady M told him: “now you know how we feel all the time.”

As he appeared to mull this, she invited him to contemplate how many women were managers in their department. And then to look out across the cubicles and see how many non-white faces he could see.

This apparently gave rise to some degree of introspection and understanding as to why Lady M felt it so important to capture the moment in a photo to share with others.

Representation is important. It gives people someone successful to identify with, to give them hope or inspiration. We all have people who inspire us, and sometimes we’re even an inspiration to other people without ever knowing it.

Lady M always gets embarrassed and a bit coy when people reveal that they admire what she does and how she does it – but the glow when it happens, and the renewed sense of purpose and achievement is a wonder to behold.

So if she inspires you, or provides a role model or representation for you, tell her. Hells, tell anyone that does that for you because it may be exactly what they need to hear in a moment of doubt.