Speaker 1: Welcome to Go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Hi, I'm Ali Wentworth,
Speaker 1: and welcome to my new podcast, Go ask Alli. We're
Speaker 1: I'll be dissecting the ship show that is modern life.
Speaker 1: You know, I've always been curious about how it all works,
Speaker 1: in the chaos of our life, relationships, families, kids, sex, death,
Speaker 1: all the basic ingredients that make up our human condition.
Speaker 1: But nothing prepared me for a pandemic. I'm married to
Speaker 1: George Stephanopolis, and I have two teenage daughters. I'm acting
Speaker 1: and writing, and one day in March I got COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen and my whole life came screeching to a halt.
Speaker 1: And as I lay in bed, taking tail and all
Speaker 1: and finishing Netflix, I thought to myself, how am I
Speaker 1: going to raise a teenager in a pandemic? How is
Speaker 1: any of us going to do that? My two daughters,
Speaker 1: their whole life was upside down. They weren't seeing their friends,
Speaker 1: they weren't going to school, they were watching all kinds
Speaker 1: of bizarre TV shows like My One Thousand Pound Life.
Speaker 1: So I decided that would be the topic of my
Speaker 1: podcast this season, How to grow a teenager in a pandemic,
Speaker 1: and so on, go ask Ali. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: ask some other people, some doctors, experts, friends. I'm even
Speaker 1: going to try to pull my teenage daughter into the
Speaker 1: hot seat and have her answer some of these questions.
Speaker 1: So on today's episode, I'm talking about the sexualization of
Speaker 1: girls in social media. Social media has amplified age old
Speaker 1: pressures for teenage girls to conform to certain sexualized narratives,
Speaker 1: and those hyper sexualized models of what it means to
Speaker 1: be feminine can affect the mental, emotional, and physical health
Speaker 1: of our girls. I'm asking how do we help them,
Speaker 1: how do we monitor them, how do we keep them
Speaker 1: from ending up on the dark web? And who better
Speaker 1: to talk to than one of my friends, Brookshields. She
Speaker 1: is an American model and actress. She has so many
Speaker 1: credits that we don't have enough time to listen all.
Speaker 1: But what I will say is that at age twelve,
Speaker 1: she was starring in a movie by Louis Mall called
Speaker 1: Pretty Baby, where she played a child prostitute. She is
Speaker 1: somebody who was sexualized as a young girl, and who
Speaker 1: now has two teenage daughters who are just tiktoking their
Speaker 1: way through the pandemic. Hello Brookshields, Hello Ali went Worth.
Speaker 1: So I'm, as you know, fascinated by what is happening
Speaker 1: to our teenage girls on social media, and we share
Speaker 1: a lot of things. You and I not only are
Speaker 1: exterior beauty, but also the fact that we have teenage
Speaker 1: girls and we are constantly scratching our heads about how
Speaker 1: to deal with this issue. The reason that you are
Speaker 1: so I find particularly fascinating to talk to about this
Speaker 1: was as a young girl, you lived in a very
Speaker 1: public sexualized way, particularly you know, because of the modeling,
Speaker 1: but also because of the Louie Mall movie. And my
Speaker 1: first question is to you is can you imagine if
Speaker 1: you were on social media when you were one through fifteen?
Speaker 1: I could not imagine it, and my wildest dreams, even
Speaker 1: my mom kept all of the press away from me,
Speaker 1: so anything that was written, I never saw anything. So
Speaker 1: I didn't even see the negativity. And I think she
Speaker 1: did that on purpose, because they tried to eviscerate all
Speaker 1: of us after that movie. Well, you know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because in our world, the sexualization of females is rewarded,
Speaker 1: whether it's magazines, television, the media, and so here our
Speaker 1: teenage girls have a platform and a place where they
Speaker 1: can self sexualize themselves as much as they can. You know, you,
Speaker 1: when you were young, your mother controlled sort of your brand,
Speaker 1: But now they kind of they get to create it themselves.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, what are your kind of parental guidelines
Speaker 1: when it comes to that. Do you have set rules
Speaker 1: like you're not allowed to do bikini shots or nuties?
Speaker 1: Are only their mother is allowed to do bikini No?
Speaker 1: I mean we do. We have access to all of
Speaker 1: their social media. We have the power to turn it
Speaker 1: off for any reason. I can't follow her. I have
Speaker 1: to follow her through another account just for security reasons.
Speaker 1: Um them one of them is public and one isn't.
Speaker 1: Why why is one of them allowed to be public?
Speaker 1: I'm just curious. Well, because one of them is sixteen
Speaker 1: and the others fourteen, and at sixteen, we said, all right,
Speaker 1: as long as we can still have control of it,
Speaker 1: and as long as you don't post anything inappropriate, we
Speaker 1: will let you. Because and the public aspect of hers
Speaker 1: is now that she's in high school, her friend group
Speaker 1: has really opened up, so they're from all these different
Speaker 1: schools and and everything like that. But we have it
Speaker 1: monitored all the time, I trust her view, I trust
Speaker 1: her fear. Um, we have put the fear of got
Speaker 1: into them. With regards to whatever you post doesn't go away.
Speaker 1: The words you choose have to be chosen very carefully.
Speaker 1: Colleges look at your Instagram. Colleges review all of that,
Speaker 1: and so they I think they're starting to get it
Speaker 1: a little bit. So most parents should be monitoring their
Speaker 1: children social media. They don't, but you know, we all
Speaker 1: try to as best we can. We all hope that
Speaker 1: they don't go behind our backs and create other accounts.
Speaker 1: There are two things that I've noticed, particularly with my children,
Speaker 1: which is likes have become so so important to get.
Speaker 1: Alike is complete validation of who you are as a person.
Speaker 1: And there's been so much research globally that show that,
Speaker 1: of course, young girls need physical validation because they all
Speaker 1: they see themselves is ugly or fat, And there's a
Speaker 1: very specific narrative about what we're all supposed to look
Speaker 1: like that they abide by. But the like seem to
Speaker 1: initiate the desire to be accepted. And what happens is
Speaker 1: they start almost like an addiction to the machines at Vegas.
Speaker 1: They need the likes to kind of fill that hole.
Speaker 1: And I found that when they are private, they know
Speaker 1: that the likes can only go so far because it
Speaker 1: is within their friend group or people they know. When
Speaker 1: you open up to the public, it becomes kind of
Speaker 1: a mad rush to get as many legs as you lot,
Speaker 1: because that sort of informs how exciting, sexy, important you
Speaker 1: are a likes and the validation it is such an addiction.
Speaker 1: And what's weird about the contradiction or the being a
Speaker 1: hypocrite in my world is that I have to have
Speaker 1: the most followers that I can. Now followers and likes.
Speaker 1: I don't look at the likes as much as I
Speaker 1: do the followers. But now this whole world has turned
Speaker 1: into if they want you to advertise X product, they
Speaker 1: look at how many followers you have. So if I
Speaker 1: happened to be a person that just wants to not
Speaker 1: really live you know that way, and take pictures of
Speaker 1: what I eat and and everything, well, then they're not
Speaker 1: gonna want me because I don't have a million or
Speaker 1: more followers. And try telling that to your kids. And
Speaker 1: I have to say, this is for my business, this
Speaker 1: is I'm having somebody else help me monitor it, so
Speaker 1: I'm not subjected to the comments, I don't read the comments.
Speaker 1: And Rowan actually said to me she posted something with me,
Speaker 1: and I asked her how it was being received, and
Speaker 1: she said, don't read the comments, mom. And I thought
Speaker 1: that was really interesting because they were clearly not nice,
Speaker 1: and she was kind of trying to protect me. So
Speaker 1: it does tell me that somewhere in there there's a barometer.
Speaker 1: What's weird for me is I know that I'm beautiful
Speaker 1: and sexy. I feel that I'm perfect, So come on,
Speaker 1: you don't need that validation, no, um no, but there
Speaker 1: are there are always going to be people that just
Speaker 1: want to rip me apart. And then I started seeing
Speaker 1: some of the comments and they were, you know, not nice,
Speaker 1: and and I thought, my god, this is just a
Speaker 1: slight taste of what these kids are are doing and
Speaker 1: what they're feeling. But it's seven, and it's not only
Speaker 1: girls criticizing each other, but it's boys. And so they're
Speaker 1: giving these boys all the power to kind of tell
Speaker 1: them if they have any word wrong with them, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they do. They pointed out girls being in this
Speaker 1: platform and in this position, we're pushing misogyny and sexism
Speaker 1: at a much earlier age. You know, I feel like,
Speaker 1: are we doing the right things as mothers to shield
Speaker 1: them from this till they're older, till they're you know,
Speaker 1: frontal lobe has developed and they can understand this the
Speaker 1: way we do. I mean, I had a very strange,
Speaker 1: strange relationship with sexuality as a child. Because this is
Speaker 1: only a half our podcast, Brooke, but it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to tell my kids, talk to my kids about this. Well,
Speaker 1: this is why you're an interesting guest because you were
Speaker 1: so sexualized as a young girl, and now you have
Speaker 1: teenage girls. How do you set the rules without them
Speaker 1: saying you were you played a child prostituted? I mean,
Speaker 1: how do they not push it back in your face?
Speaker 1: I mean it's like Hodd Lives and Tierra saying I
Speaker 1: don't want to see you in a pageant. I mean no,
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with this right now with one of my daughters.
Speaker 1: There is an agency that wants her to start modeling,
Speaker 1: and I kept saying, I need to understand the why
Speaker 1: you know you need it's a very different industry than
Speaker 1: it is now. And this man said to me said, look,
Speaker 1: she's too young. She's fourteen, and we wait till sixteen
Speaker 1: signing them and taking care of them. And the odd
Speaker 1: thing for me was I was doing I was nine,
Speaker 1: I was eight seven, you know, I was doing these
Speaker 1: pictures since forever, and yet I do Pretty Baby. Then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I come the most famous virgin
Speaker 1: in the world. So I grew up with absolutely the
Speaker 1: most conflicting, paradoxical way of living, and I just shut down.
Speaker 1: But wasn't wasn't the fact that your virginity was publicized
Speaker 1: as a way to counteract the part that made you
Speaker 1: so sexualized. And probably your mother probably gotten a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble for when you were younger because of Pretty Baby.
Speaker 1: I mean she got in trouble for everything, and rightfully so.
Speaker 1: She was sort of a train wreck that I was
Speaker 1: always more interested in keeping her happy and keeping her alive.
Speaker 1: I don't know if she did that intentionally. The truth
Speaker 1: was I was very sequestered. I was very much in
Speaker 1: a bubble. I didn't leave my mother's site for forever,
Speaker 1: you know. And but most of these girls, most of
Speaker 1: these girls, you know, they don't leave their room. To
Speaker 1: my other point, this being a pandemic, I think teenagers
Speaker 1: are so bored they want to be provocative and that
Speaker 1: to me takes you to a very dark and scary place,
Speaker 1: which is what I always live in terror of. And
Speaker 1: I make sure that I talked to them about that
Speaker 1: dark and scary place, because even if they look like
Speaker 1: they're not listening or they roll their eyes, they hear me.
Speaker 1: And as long as I can keep a little fear
Speaker 1: in them. And I mean that like I I want
Speaker 1: them to be afraid. I read them the news. I
Speaker 1: make them watch certain documentaries about you know, abductions and
Speaker 1: about relationships that seemed like they were really with a
Speaker 1: nice guy and then they're tragic. And their response, because
Speaker 1: they feel like they're invincible, especially at this age, is
Speaker 1: it's not going to happen to me, mom. And that's
Speaker 1: such an ignorant way of looking at things. And I
Speaker 1: just keep reiterating it. I said it could. This does
Speaker 1: not discriminate. It doesn't matter where you live, what you
Speaker 1: look like, what you are. There's nothing that makes you
Speaker 1: more prey than anybody else. And so you are not
Speaker 1: exempt from it. And and the predators can find you.
Speaker 1: It's very easy to find you social media, find them
Speaker 1: on but you can also there's so many ways that
Speaker 1: you can find people. You just tracked them. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, that's why I can't personally follow my kids,
Speaker 1: because you can then track them to me easily. I
Speaker 1: think that we're talking about a lot of things. I
Speaker 1: think I've seen many kids post pictures that are inappropriate.
Speaker 1: And they're fourteen there, fourteen years old, thirteen years old.
Speaker 1: And my kind of question note that is it's not
Speaker 1: my kid. What is our obligation to each other to
Speaker 1: sort of say, hey, this came to my attention. Well,
Speaker 1: I can tell you. I can tell you right now.
Speaker 1: I had an experience with this. I have a friend
Speaker 1: and her daughter, starting at age twelve, was posting, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, inappropriate pictures. They were incredibly sexual. You know,
Speaker 1: there were tiny bikini shots and pouty face and finger
Speaker 1: in the mouth and you know, the come other look
Speaker 1: and the whole thing. And I got sort of nervous
Speaker 1: because my girls followed her and my girls looked up
Speaker 1: to her, and I thought, this is a potential role
Speaker 1: model for my children. And I got to stop this,
Speaker 1: and I talked to the parents a few times, and
Speaker 1: I said, you cannot have your child using this as
Speaker 1: her only currency. And she has a public account, which
Speaker 1: is very dangerous. I mean, it's like a predators smartest board.
Speaker 1: You got to shut it down. And they weren't interested.
Speaker 1: They didn't agree with me because they were and are
Speaker 1: very proud of what their daughter looks like, and they
Speaker 1: liked that she was out there, and they liked that
Speaker 1: she got a lot of likes because the connection led
Speaker 1: directly to them. And I finally had to kind of
Speaker 1: pull back from the friendship and have my kids un
Speaker 1: follow that girl because I was so terrified of the ramifications.
Speaker 1: And I started educating my children in a way where
Speaker 1: I would sit them in front of Instagram and say,
Speaker 1: look at this picture. This is a girl to me
Speaker 1: that has a hole to fill and she's choosing to
Speaker 1: fill it by sexualizing herself and having unknown boys and
Speaker 1: men out in the world tell her she's okay, you
Speaker 1: are okay. You don't need to do that, you know.
Speaker 1: So we had a million conversations about that, to the
Speaker 1: point where I mean, my daughters won't even put like
Speaker 1: a funny bathing suit shot going down a water slide
Speaker 1: because I've because I've terrified them, and they'll be spinsters
Speaker 1: living in a castle when they're eighty. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: But another thing, which is really interesting to me is
Speaker 1: I was so ashamed of everything growing up. I was
Speaker 1: ashamed of the way I looked. I didn't have big boobs.
Speaker 1: I always felt my butt was big. And so there
Speaker 1: was all these different little weird messages that I was
Speaker 1: getting that were so contradictory that I just I wanted
Speaker 1: to hide, you know, And even if I were to
Speaker 1: play a role, it wasn't liberating to me. So there's
Speaker 1: a part of me that looks at the girls. They're
Speaker 1: proud of their bodies, and I don't want them to
Speaker 1: lose that. Like, I don't want them to get shame,
Speaker 1: have shame on their bodies. And I don't want them
Speaker 1: to be so puritanical. But I want them to be
Speaker 1: enough fear and and I I was trying to say
Speaker 1: to them, if they're so worried about likes and they're
Speaker 1: so worried about being regarded and how they come across
Speaker 1: to people, then wouldn't they want to know that they
Speaker 1: missed the image that they're putting out there is not respectful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a short break and we'll be
Speaker 1: right back. Welcome back with more, Go ass Galley. The
Speaker 1: problem is with this social media what's happening is mental
Speaker 1: health is becoming a huge problem. You know, there's body
Speaker 1: image stuff, there's eating disorders, depression, anxiety, suicide. You know,
Speaker 1: there is a story I heard recently which was about
Speaker 1: a young girl and she was, you know, not very popular,
Speaker 1: and she wanted to get popular and the popular girls
Speaker 1: were sexy and sexual, and her social media had only
Speaker 1: been like, you know, puppies and cupcakes, and so she
Speaker 1: went to a party and decided to perform oral sex
Speaker 1: on a low crosse player because he was popular, and
Speaker 1: she thought, this is my way in, and one of
Speaker 1: the teammates filmed it, put it on social media, and
Speaker 1: she was sledge shamed and she killed herself. Now this
Speaker 1: is a particularly vulnerable girl. But you know, we're all
Speaker 1: dancing in this kind of mine field of mental health
Speaker 1: and of how our daughters are conducting themselves and viewing themselves.
Speaker 1: So for me, I think it's a great thing to
Speaker 1: educate your girls. And also it's not just them, Like
Speaker 1: you brought up a really good point, someone else filmed it.
Speaker 1: You could put something on and it can be screenshotted
Speaker 1: and it can be disseminated, so it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're in control of it. You're not really in control
Speaker 1: of anything. And you know, you go to the beach
Speaker 1: and they're not having fun at the beach. They're just
Speaker 1: taking pictures, selfies or pictures of each other or and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, when where's your childhood? You know, when when
Speaker 1: do you swim on and play in the sand that
Speaker 1: I don't mean make sandcastles like you did when you
Speaker 1: were three, but just the joy of being outside. Or
Speaker 1: that's the addiction in general. And so when you look
Speaker 1: at social media when they're young and now they're getting
Speaker 1: younger and younger and younger, you know, they're given these platforms.
Speaker 1: You know, it is sort of an out of focus duckling,
Speaker 1: and then as soon as they're sort of preteens, it's
Speaker 1: suddenly the camera's turn and it's on them. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny faces and stuff. And then they get more
Speaker 1: kind of aware and the faces pull back and suddenly
Speaker 1: it's their bodies and they become more sexual and it's
Speaker 1: less about goofy faces and now it's about presenting yourself
Speaker 1: to the male population. It's like you could do like
Speaker 1: one of those flipbooks of seeing you know, the ages
Speaker 1: and how they deal with social media. It's also a
Speaker 1: very curated platform. So even if you're a girl and
Speaker 1: you maybe had issues with your body or your face,
Speaker 1: you can now face tune them. You can make your
Speaker 1: breasts bigger, you can make your acne go away, you
Speaker 1: can sort of morph into your idealistic version of yourself.
Speaker 1: So that's another thing that's being presented out there, which
Speaker 1: to me feeds the anxiety, depression, and eating disorders because
Speaker 1: you know that you're putting something out there that's false,
Speaker 1: and every time you look in the mirror you are
Speaker 1: reminded that you don't look like that image. You are
Speaker 1: perpetuating the lowest self esteem that you could possibly have up.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's so devastating. And then you
Speaker 1: have teenage girls who want to look like the image
Speaker 1: that face tune has created, so they go get preemptive
Speaker 1: botox and fillers at fourteen fifteen years old, again, before
Speaker 1: the frontal lobe has developed, before you're capable of making
Speaker 1: good decisions, you already cutting and pasting an image of
Speaker 1: yourself that hasn't even formed yet. Before they even really
Speaker 1: know who they are, they're painting a picture that's not
Speaker 1: based on them, their own self and they're all it's homogenizing.
Speaker 1: It's like everybody is starting to look alike. It's sort
Speaker 1: of creating this avatar mbots this world, and you're putting
Speaker 1: yourself in a position to inevitably have to fail because
Speaker 1: you can't look like this Barbie doll or this this image.
Speaker 1: But it's younger and younger. You know, my seventeen year
Speaker 1: old daughter shouldn't be worried about how thin waste is,
Speaker 1: but they see this kind of sexy hour glass figure,
Speaker 1: you know. And of course the physicality is always changing.
Speaker 1: Now big butts are really in, you know, so I mean,
Speaker 1: now I need a big butt. It's constant. And the
Speaker 1: reason I keep hammering social media is when we grow up,
Speaker 1: you know, we saw them in monthly magazines, but our
Speaker 1: kids are barraged by them all day long. These images,
Speaker 1: hundreds of them, be this, B this, B this, B this,
Speaker 1: B two B this. They're the guinea pigs. You know.
Speaker 1: They're the first generation to grow up with social media.
Speaker 1: And I just worry. I worry about the long term effects.
Speaker 1: You know. I've I've sat with my daughter and she'll
Speaker 1: take a picture and she'll show me what can be
Speaker 1: done to it, and well, I'd lie if I told
Speaker 1: you that the one that they docked or up doesn't
Speaker 1: look better than the real one, right, But what's the
Speaker 1: point of that, especially if everybody knows their doctor. It's
Speaker 1: like when a woman walks into her and she's had
Speaker 1: a horrible facelift. You think, you know, you're not fooling us.
Speaker 1: We know that you've had a facelift. So what are
Speaker 1: we proving? What are we saying exactly? What's the message?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's an unhealthy one, you know, it's let's
Speaker 1: create this fake version of ourselves because in that one instance,
Speaker 1: we get to live the fantasy of looking like that.
Speaker 1: But then what does that do when the phone goes
Speaker 1: off and when you wake up and you are just
Speaker 1: in your own beautiful, different, unique, fabulous body. But the
Speaker 1: way we describe each other versus the way we describe
Speaker 1: ourselves is amazing. And the trainer that I work with said,
Speaker 1: he sees hundreds, well he used to see hundreds of people.
Speaker 1: And a guy can be overweight and whatever, but he'll
Speaker 1: go to the mirror and he'll just, yeah, just find that,
Speaker 1: like yeah, and the girls could be fit and gorgeous
Speaker 1: and skin and like just amazing. And they'll find one
Speaker 1: thing and now show it and look at it and
Speaker 1: punish themselves for it. And he said, it's so sad
Speaker 1: what he sees because the women don't even give themselves
Speaker 1: a break. I've never used face tune or any of
Speaker 1: those filters, but my daughters haven't either. But I know
Speaker 1: that my eldest daughter will take a picture of me
Speaker 1: and do stuff to it before she says, oh, you
Speaker 1: can post it, or she does. She does, she's like, Mom,
Speaker 1: don't you can't put that? No, Mom, you gotta, and
Speaker 1: she'll do something. It's usually a wrinkle thing. I don't
Speaker 1: suddenly have enormous breast or anything. Yeah. No, Rowan will say,
Speaker 1: let me take another angle, let me take a different picture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that. I I think I rebel against that
Speaker 1: a little bit because I'm so conscious of it. You know,
Speaker 1: I rebel against my daughters wanted to do that by
Speaker 1: saying no this, I don't care. So I am. I
Speaker 1: know mom, but you have you know your roots are,
Speaker 1: so I don't care to pandemic. I don't care. This
Speaker 1: is who I am, and this is what I sort
Speaker 1: of dig my heels in about it, which you know,
Speaker 1: probably it's probably a terrible idea. And I don't think
Speaker 1: they started retouching stuff until I mean, who knows you
Speaker 1: and Ivory snow Baby was a yeah, I think they
Speaker 1: retouched that. Yeah. Yeah, they made me a little chunky
Speaker 1: little Yeah, they made me a little more rippled. And
Speaker 1: you know, they got rid of the crows speed. Now
Speaker 1: a quick word from our sponsors, welcome back to go
Speaker 1: ask Ali, let's get back to the discussion. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to go back a little bit about as a parent.
Speaker 1: You know, with teenagers, you're doing a lot of like
Speaker 1: don't drink, don't do drugs, don't drive under the influence,
Speaker 1: don't let this person do that. But to me, the
Speaker 1: social media component has become a whole education in itself
Speaker 1: that I didn't have and you didn't have as a kid.
Speaker 1: So it's not like our parents gave us any kind
Speaker 1: of handbook to be able to deal with this. And
Speaker 1: I feel like social media takes up much more of
Speaker 1: my time in terms of educating my children than any
Speaker 1: other aspect of teenagehood. And you know the reason that
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you, and I'm going to talk to
Speaker 1: some other doctors about the sexualization of girls and social
Speaker 1: media in the pandemic is because my concern is right
Speaker 1: now with with kids not going to school, not going
Speaker 1: to camp, and not sort of venturing out and having
Speaker 1: normal experiences, having you know, first kiss with the boy
Speaker 1: or whatever that is, because they're insulated and because they're
Speaker 1: alone in their rooms or their homes. I don't want
Speaker 1: them to experiment in a way that will cause severe damage.
Speaker 1: Like you said down the line, with college admission and
Speaker 1: with with being sledge shamed, with predators, with eating disorders,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. I worry that during a pandemic,
Speaker 1: these things all get amplified. So the only thing that
Speaker 1: I can keep doing is instead of just being that
Speaker 1: broken record and shaking my head when bad lyrics come on,
Speaker 1: or or telling them don't use your butt like that,
Speaker 1: I just then wait two moments that have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this, and just say you have to listen
Speaker 1: to this conversation. This is not the image of you
Speaker 1: that should be out there. It's dangerous, it's not fair
Speaker 1: to you, and I would say you are. You have
Speaker 1: to present yourself as the best possible version of yourself,
Speaker 1: and that means being respectful. Because everything that's being done
Speaker 1: now is setting the precedent for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: I do a similar thing with my daughters. I say,
Speaker 1: when it comes to social media, what is the story
Speaker 1: that you're telling? What is your story? Is your story
Speaker 1: that you're playing lacrosse and that you care about social
Speaker 1: justice and you know you care about this, you care
Speaker 1: about that? Or is your story that you're sexy and
Speaker 1: you can bend your legs like that? I mean, so
Speaker 1: that helps them with the big picture. You know, what's
Speaker 1: the story that you're going to tell? What, as you said,
Speaker 1: sort of what what's gonna propel you into the life
Speaker 1: you want? Um, which I think are probably better ways
Speaker 1: than I'm following you. I know what you're putting on
Speaker 1: your social media because they're teenagers and they'll find ways
Speaker 1: around it, you know. That's to me, that's the only
Speaker 1: thing I can do. I can sort of show them
Speaker 1: the much bigger picture than if Scooter likes or not
Speaker 1: likes her bikini picture, but sort of what it means
Speaker 1: for women in a much bigger and global sense, and
Speaker 1: that there is a world outside of them, you know that.
Speaker 1: I think what's happened to is it so insular? You
Speaker 1: know that even though it's in one little screen, but
Speaker 1: it's everywhere. One of them is just leaving right now,
Speaker 1: um with a case of beer. No, but her skirts
Speaker 1: doesn't look like skirt. There you go, there's God forbid,
Speaker 1: somebody drops something and she has to pick it up.
Speaker 1: That's not a skirt, that's a belt. Anyway, I just
Speaker 1: don't want her to believe that her whole currency is
Speaker 1: her beauty. Hey, listen, Brookshields played a child prostitute at twelve,
Speaker 1: then was famous for being a virgin way after most
Speaker 1: people had lost their virginity. Modeled actress went to Princeton.
Speaker 1: I mean you are You are a hard lady to
Speaker 1: pinpoint when it comes to this, but a great role
Speaker 1: model for girls. So thank you for talking to me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for talking about the hyper sexualization of girls
Speaker 1: in social media. This is one of my best these Brookshields.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Brooke, Thank you at Lee. Hey, really quickly,
Speaker 1: speaking of I'm sending you an email about for a facelift.
Speaker 1: Yea for a facelift and a book. Jog right, sign
Speaker 1: me up. She's gonna do leg lifts right now, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go finish my pint of chunky Monkey ice cream.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening, be sure to subscribe, rate
Speaker 1: and leave a review, and follow me in my undoctored posts.
Speaker 1: On social media, I'm on Twitter at Ali E. Wentworth
Speaker 1: and on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth. Go. Ask
Speaker 1: Ali is a production of Shonda Land Audio and partnership
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