Drew Barrymore grew up in the media spotlight. She is best known for her roles in E.T., 50 First Dates, Never Been Kissed and many, many more. As a teen, she grew up living a hard life surrounded by drugs and alcohol. But, now as an adult she is an amazing woman. We had the amazing opportunity to interview her on January 25th about her views on how women are portrayed in the media. She spoke to us about inequality in the media and gave us advice on how to stay positive and confident. She said, “You have to shut out any voices that make you feel not good about yourself, including the ones inside your head. Focus on positivity, and discipline can’t be that hard on yourself.” I thought this was really important to mention. Drew struggled as a girl and as a teen and could’ve struggled as an adult but I think she took her own advice and stayed positive. It’s important to be yourself and not let anyone get in the way of that. In the media all we see is the same blonde hair, blue eyed, tall and skinny model. But, 1 in 3 models are anorexic, is that the world we want to live in. It is people like Drew that are using their voice in the media for good. Drew wants people to know that “Women can’t do it all.” She got a lot of mixed feed back for saying this but in our interview she explained, “Well that was what I was trying to do, but some women took it in a way that was a little offensive to them as if they couldn’t do it all, so to those women: you can’t do it all at the same time. Quantum physics won’t allow you to. For my own self as a mom, I want to manage my own expectations about myself, because I am very hard on myself and self motivated, and if you’re really upset at yourself, you get really disheartened, and you need to focus.” As much as the media is hard on us, we are hard on ourselves too. We can’t do it all and we don’t have to do it all. Women are strong and independent and can make their own decisions. Drew is a huge inspiration to me and to many others that you really can turn your life around and I’m so so happy she uses her platform for good and proving to the world that women are amazing.
