Motherhood has brought me many joys and insights, but the new perspective it granted me on the role I had inadvertently played in young women's lives for the 2 decades I spent in the modeling industry was downright sobering.
Although everyone who works in the industry senses how discriminating it can be -- against size, against age and against so much more -- I had given very little thought to the ways in which I had personally been part of the problem. Once it did occur to me; though, I knew I had to be part of the solution.
I was essentially paid to perpetuate the myth that we are all, or should at least try to be, 17 and a size 2 forever.
For those of us who are older than 17, that means trying to turn back the hands of time... and for those of us who are younger, it means trying to accelerate time -- literally growing up before our time. As a young model I was placed in impossibly adult situations and asked to play 'sexy' not just for the camera and for those reading the magazines in which my image appeared, but very often for the people in the business who were perpetuating the fantasy. Not only was that utterly inappropriate, but over time it led to a separation of self.
For many, many years I cultivated the 'performer' in me -- someone who could project the provocative images others apparently wanted to see, while I sublimated the vulnerable, sensitive and real Carré -- in some ways actually stunting my sexual maturity. I had to assume this role of performer just to exist in the workplace I somehow found myself in -- to get by day-to-day. It robbed me of real pleasures and the kinds of deepened relationships that unfold when sexual growth is allowed to occur in its own time.
We can see that young models are still being 'used' in just the same way today and that this fabricated sexuality sells as effectively as ever, if not more so. We are living in the age of Toddlers and Tiaras. In an age when young girls are often encouraged to emulate prostitutes. Girls are being sexualized even earlier now than they were in my generation.
In my mind this is reckless. And it is dangerous. Not only are we putting minors in inappropriate roles, but we are sending a confusing and dangerous message to our youth everywhere -- to our sons as well as to our daughters. Eating disorders, body dysmorphia and a general dissatisfaction with one's life and body seems to ail too many young people. I don't believe for a minute that most parents are willing to abandon their kids to this troubling and, it seems to me, worsening problem.
I know that I'm not, which is why I've owned up to my past, and have written about it honestly in my memoir Beauty, Disrupted. My daughters may be pained by aspects of how I spent my youth when they are old enough to read about it, but I do hope that they will know that I told my story to help end a myth that they -- and all of our children -- shouldn't have to live by. That I wanted to help unravel the thread of dysfunction that I had a hand in sewing.
Georgia Van Cuylenburg: How I Coped With Losing All Of My Hair -- At 21
Marianne Schnall: Miss Representation: An Interview with Writer & Director Jennifer Siebel Newsom
Hillary St. Pierre: Inner Beauty Over Banter (and Bra Size)
Women and Body Image - Womens Health and Medical Information ...
Realistically I don't see many young girls (and their mothers and "handler-mothers" who typically manage them) pulling out of the game when they are top earners, and don't suspect many will. But if anyone is equipped to help them, you (as one of the original wave of "supermodels") are, so hopefully you can offer them some of your hard won tools. Best of luck with your memoir.