answer:The contemporary use of the word ‘hero’ bothers me. Where I live (Australia) I often see sports people being described as ‘heroes’. I don’t believe playing football well or being able to jump high or lift a great weight makes you a hero. A skilled sports person and perhaps a role model (in some but not all cases) but not a hero. I just did a very quick search for the definition of the word ‘hero’. This is what I found. “A man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength” (WordWeb). Not a quality dictionary I admit, but the idea that only men can be heroes also disturbs me and that’s just for a start. I think we do still need people who display courage and sufficient strength of character to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Those ‘heroes’ appear in all walks of life and are certainly not only male or nobility. Another definition was “Someone who fights for a cause”. We definitely still need people who will fight for a cause. They may be small, quiet voices that very few people hear but they put themselves out there to try to change something they perceive as wrong in the world. It might be fighting a big corporation who is polluting a river, or fighting for justice for people who were prescribed a drug that did them harm but nobody is acting to help them. It might be a doctor who goes to a remote region to provide healthcare that saves people’s lives. It could be a woman who works with rape victims or victims of violent crime. So yes, we need heroes. People who quietly get on with righting things that are wrong in this world. Real heroes are probably not well known though. They are busy getting on with their ‘heroic’ acts and not looking for glory and they are very likely to be poor, are unlikely to be of noble ancestry and most definitely might be women or children.