Girls Get a Look at Real Job World : Careers: Take Our Daughters to Work program is designed to boost aspirations.

Corinne Castro hasn’t a clue about who Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan are, and the word “feminism” has yet to find its way into her vocabulary.

But the pensive sixth-grader from Panorama City unwittingly benefited from the women’s movement Wednesday when she got the chance to skip school and spend some time with a woman ophthalmologist.

The best part was “just seeing her at work, and how a doctor handles everything,” Corinne, 11, said as her mentor-for-the-day, Dr. Rebecca Sison, checked a diabetes patient at the eye clinic at Martin Luther King Hospital and Medical Center.

The two met through Take Our Daughters to Work, a national campaign sponsored by the Ms. Foundation for Women that urged parents on Wednesday to bring their daughters to work with them.

Prompted by studies that have found that teen-age girls irrevocably lose confidence and self-esteem while boys continue to receive more attention and encouragement, the goal was to expose girls ages 9 to 15 to the workplace and give them the message that they are taken seriously.

Apparently the campaign itself received little exposure or serious consideration in Los Angeles, including the San Fernando Valley, where a random survey of major employers showed that few companies were responding to the effort or even aware of it.

Corporate spokespersons at MCA in Universal City, Blue Cross and 20th Century Insurance in Woodland Hills, and the Times Valley Edition in Chatsworth said no special events were planned for the day--either because they had not heard about the campaign or learned of it too late.

“We just haven’t had a chance to completely review it,” said Christine Hanson, vice president of corporate communications for MCA.

At the Bank of Newport in Encino, loan processor Susan Robbins said it was her daughter, 12-year-old Caryn, who told her about Daughters Day and insisted on participating after hearing about it on TV or the radio and through friends at school.

Caryn, a student at Arroyo Seco Junior High School in Santa Clarita who phoned The Times on Wednesday to request an interview, said she was skeptical of the studies that claim boys are still favored over girls.

“We’re almost equal,” she said, after a day of filing loan documents and doing other paperwork. “We’re not quite up there, but I think we will be soon.”

Corrine Castro and about a dozen other girls from Chase Street Elementary School in Panorama City participated thanks to the corporate largess and marketing savvy of the Body Shop, the chain that sells fancy soaps, bath products and cosmetics with an environmentally safe theme. The chain was founded by Anita Roddick.

Body Shops across the country were urged to promote the campaign in their communities, so Kacee Colter and Greg Purcell, the owners of franchises in Northridge and Canoga Park, paired the Chase Street students with professional women willing to serve as role models. Attorney Gloria Allred, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus, Los Angeles Police Officer Patty Ferguson and ophthalmologist Sison agreed to join the plan and show the ropes to a student who was chosen on the basis of an essay she wrote about a working woman she admired.

Neither Sison or Ferguson had heard about the Take Our Daughters to Work campaign but said they were happy to help.

Sison, who is completing her residency, gave Corinne a tour of the hospital, then kept her close by as she tended to one patient after another at the eye clinic there. In several instances, she asked Corinne and her 20-year-old sister, Rosie, who came along as a chaperon, to translate for Spanish-speaking patients.

Ferguson gave 12-year-old Rosemary Lopez a tour of the West Valley police station before taking her for a ride in a patrol car.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” said Ferguson of the campaign.