It is 6am on the morning of 20 June, 1837. An 18-year-old girl is roused from her bed in Kensington Palace in London. "Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor uncle, the King, was no more," Victoria wrote in her diary later that day, "and consequently that I am Queen." Tomorrow, Britain will celebrate 200 years since the birth of Queen Victoria, one of its longest-reigning monarchs. Today, most people imagine Victoria as she was at the end of her life: the "Widow of Windsor", still in mourning for her husband Albert, 40 years after his death. "We are not amused," she declares, po-faced, when someone tells a scandalous story over dinner. But Daisy Goodwin, creator of ITV's Victoria, says the Queen can be a role model for young women. In The Daily Mail this week, Goodwin wrote of Victoria as: "A woman who was afraid of nothing, who never worried about what she looked like or what people said about her behind her back, a woman who could speak without fear of being interrupted, a woman who commanded respect as well as inspiring affection, a working mother who never felt a shred of guilt, the wife of a great man who never surrendered her own identity." Unlike Elizabeth I - who never married and described her body as that of "a weak and feeble woman - Victoria refused to deny her femininity. She could be a mother, a wife and the most powerful person in the country, argues Goodwin. Victoria survived eight assassination attempts in her lifetime. She was unafraid of expressing her opinion, and had a fierce temper. She was passionately in love with her husband, Prince Albert. But although they had nine children, she saw pregnancy as the "occupational hazard of being a wife". She hated the toll it took on her health, and that it took her away from her work. She was also a highly successful ruler. Victoria oversaw Britain's industrial revolution, the expansion of its Empire, and maintained the royal family's popularity - even as other European nations revolted against their kings and queens. Can we really call Victoria a feminist role model? She was stridently against votes for women, arguing that equality would make them "the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings". And her role as Empress of India is nothing to admire: millions of Indians died under Britain's colonial rule. But surely we can still be inspired by Victoria's spirit? She lived in a very different time. Yes, she was flawed, but why should we expect women to be perfect? "Young women identify with a girl who liked men, parties and dogs, but who also wanted to be a successful monarch, and who was not going to be told how to do it by a bunch of old men," argues Goodwin.