What’s Celebrated

(4 minute read)

While this blog primarily focuses on the topic of beauty and how to tackle that from a faith-based perspective, I thought I would write something a bit more inclusive today. Regardless of your religious or political views, this is a challenge to ALL women. There’s something that’s been weighing heavy on my heart lately and I need just 4 minutes of your time. I want to talk about what we, as enlightened women in 2021, are giving our attention to. 

I decided to use this 1920s inspired shot from a photoshoot I was apart of in Athens, Greece. That’s me on the right; definitely not biking in those shoes! My last post focused on the unrealistic standards of beauty that a decade of modeling had left me with. But the fashion industry is honestly so much more than that. It offers a platform for photographers, designers, models, make-up artists, hair stylists, and other visionaries to showcase their talents. Throughout my career I had the opportunity to be apart of photoshoots that went beyond fashion – they were expressions of art. Those were honestly the ones I cherished the most. 

Take this particular photoshoot for example. Us models were meant to capture women just basking in glorious freedom. We were living in a time where thanks to the suffragettes, we were able to work and vote. Now regardless of your views, I hope we can all be thankful for that. These intelligent and incredible women fought for freedoms that frankly a lot of us take for granted. They envisioned a future for women that I can guarantee did not look like Cardi B at the Grammy’s. Herein lies my point. 

Despite being selective with who I follow on social media, I am still bombarded with sexually explicit advertisements and provocative photos. Is THIS what my daughter has to look forward to? Young women using sex to sell because a little more skin will get you a lot more “likes”? Cardi B’s raunchy performance was nothing more than what we’ve already been encouraging women to do. Just hear me out on this dear reader. I want you to consider two women with me for a moment: Kendall Jenner and Alyssa Carson. 

I bet you recognize the first name but not the second. I know I didn’t. Well let’s compare shall we? Miss Kendall Jenner has 153 million IG followers. She posts photos in bikinis and seductive selfies. Millions of likes. I’m not entirely sure what she does and I’m pretty sure some of her posts are borderline pornographic – but there we are society. Hashtag progress. 


Okay now let’s talk about the second young woman I mentioned: Alyssa Carson. She’s a 19-year-old astronaut who became Nasa’s youngest person in history to graduate from the Advanced Space Academy. She’s also objectively quite attractive but her beach photos include her in a T-shirt with her dog. Her social media is filled with her dreams to someday walk on Mars. Can you guess how many followers she has? 462 thousand. So Kendall Jenner has 331 times MORE followers than Alyssa Carson. Not like ten times more or even fifty times more followers – Three hundred and thirty-one! WHAT!

Why is Kendall getting more of our attention than Alyssa? Why are we still doing this as women in 2021? Kendall’s red bikini photo even made the news for crying out loud! No matter what your religious or political views are, WHY are we still doing this? Seriously! Millions of likes for a half naked photo posted on social media? WHAT? COME ON LADIES!

Look I know this might sound a little hypocritical coming from someone who spent a decade making a living off her looks – but that’s exactly why I started this blog; Because I want MORE for my daughter and the next generation than what I was offered. I want more than an obsession with being “beautiful”. Obviously for me personally this looks like chasing after Christ instead of our culture’s idea of beauty. 

But what does this look like for you? What do you want for your daughter and for future generations of women? Because right now the subliminal message EVERY young woman out there is hearing is that if she just posts sexy selfies and shows a lot more skin – she’ll get a lot more “likes” and a lot more followers. 

There are women out there making an incredible difference in our world. There’s even a woman who might walk on mars someday. Who we choose to follow on social media and the things we “like” MATTER. Please stop propagating that women are sexual objects. This is the opposite of progress. We are all “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). I am begging you for the sake of my daughter and the next generation of women to please consider: what are you giving your attention to?