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Join us, feminist coaches Taina Brown and Becky Mollenkamp, for casual (and often deep) conversations about business, current events, politics, pop culture, and more. We’re not perfect activists or allies! These are our real-time, messy thoughts as we make sense of the world around us. If you also want to create a more just and equitable world, please join us on the journey to Messy Liberation.
Becky Mollenkamp: Good morning, Tyra, how are you? My God. Okay, for everyone, I know it's Taina. We were just talking about Tyra Banks. That's why I said Tyra. And also, I have a cold and my head is not working right. Good morning, Taina, how are you?
Taina Brown: I'm good. I have mixed feelings about being called Tyra.
Becky Mollenkamp: Especially since we're talking about Tyra Banks, I can completely understand why you might have some mixed feelings. Should we tell people why we were talking about Tyra Banks right before this?
Taina Brown: Yeah, so we were talking about Tyra Banks because of the recent Victoria's Secret fashion show where Tyra walked after a long time having not walked, and just basically being retired as a supermodel. And the contradiction of that, her walking supposedly representing plus-size models, full-figured models, but also all the bullshit she perpetuated about body image, weight stigma, and diet culture in the early 2000s.
Becky Mollenkamp: Full-figured and mature, because that's also part of what we want to talk about today—aging, maturing, improving. I'm trying to think of words we could use instead of aging, but aging is fine because we all age unless we don't, right? She's representing this full-figured, advanced-aged image. She's probably about the same age as us. I think she might be slightly older than me. I'd imagine she's around 50, but still, for the modeling world, that is, you know, older. We were gonna talk a little bit about our feelings around aging.
Taina Brown: So do you want to share how old you are, Becky, since we're talking about aging?
Becky Mollenkamp: I am 49, coming up on the big 5-0, which I have lots of feelings about even though I don't want to, so we can talk about that today.
Taina Brown: Tyra Banks is 50. I just looked it up. She looks amazing.
Becky Mollenkamp: I thought she was probably right around 50. Yeah, which is nothing obviously. She looked gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. And I had a hard time looking at her. If I'm being really honest, I had a really hard time looking at her and being able to just say she looks gorgeous because I was so clouded by all of my memories of America's Next Top Model, which I watched at an age when I was probably a little older than some girls who were watching it and were more deeply affected than I was. But I think for millennials, especially, that show more than maybe anything else—there's a lot in the running for this—but that show perhaps more than anything else made women, especially girls, feel really shitty about their bodies. Tyra, and even more so, what was her name? The older model who was the first—
Taina Brown: Janice Dickinson.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yes, thank you. The first supermodel, as she self-described. Making these women feel really bad for being "plus-size," and when we now look back at the women they deemed plus-size—and I'm using finger quotes in case you can't see—it’s appalling. First of all, I don't mean that in a way of like being plus-size is appalling, but that they were calling these women who were thin plus-size because they weren’t. They weren’t Kate Moss-thin, they weren’t Twiggy-thin, and at that time in the ‘90s, that was the aesthetic. You know, we’ve moved away from it, but I think we’re moving back towards it, which is very scary. But to see Tyra up there on that runway flaunting her full figure, looking gorgeous and owning it, as if we should all be saying, "Way to go, thank you, look what you're doing," but without... I don't know. I don’t know if she's acknowledged and repented for the past, but even if she has, it just felt really gross.
Taina Brown: I have to agree with you there. I think my introduction to America's Next Top Model was maybe 2008, 2009. I went on vacation to see a friend in New Jersey. It wasn’t wild; I was just going to hang out with her for a few days. She was house-sitting for her boss, and we stayed in bed all day, catching a marathon on Bravo or something. We got so into it and thought, "Let’s just do this all day. We don’t have to go out. Let’s just make dinner and have a pajama party." I’ve always had an interest in fashion and aesthetic. If you don’t know, beauty is one of my core values, so I’ve always been interested in things other people have deemed beautiful. I’m learning to make those definitions for myself. But I remember one girl who made it—I forgot which season, maybe season two or three—to the top three or four, her name was Kenya. They were on a trip to South Africa, doing photo shoots and whatnot. The way they edited those episodes was every time they showed her, she was eating. They didn’t show her doing anything else. So post-production was perpetuating the idea that she was gorging on food. They kept showing shots of her belly, even though by today’s standards, she would be considered normal size, really thin. They had several conversations with her about controlling her eating, losing weight, and that she was getting too fat.
Becky Mollenkamp: I feel that.
Taina Brown: First of all, this girl was probably stressed the fuck out because it’s a competition and there’s so much pressure. They kept clips of her not knowing whether Nelson Mandela was alive or not. They made her into this villain, equating being fat with a lack of intelligence or a moral compass. It was such an interesting choice by the producers. I’m 42, going to be 43 in a couple of months. I didn’t watch the fashion show because I’m not into it. Victoria’s Secret has never done anything for me, so I had no interest. I saw it on social media, though, and part of me was like, "I’m happy for her." If Tyra has done the inner work of deconstructing fatphobia, I’m happy for her journey. I’m happy she feels proud of her body and embraced it. I remember when she had her talk show, there were always headlines about what she looked like—how much weight she gained, how much she lost. She yo-yoed for a while, which is totally fine and totally normal as you age. So part of me is like, if she’s reached the point of "fuck it, this is my body," then I’m happy for her. But like you, I don’t know if she’s publicly apologized or said she regretted perpetuating diet culture and all of that.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah.
Taina Brown: I can hear people saying, "So what should she have done? Should she have not walked?" Yeah, I don’t think she should have walked. If she’s done the inner work and feels comfortable and happy, I think the best thing to do would have been to put out a public statement and say, "I’m happy to represent this, but I regret my past choices and think this opportunity is better suited for another model." But that’s not what she did, and it feels like gaslighting to come out as this body positivity icon when that’s not been her journey.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah, and what she wore. She was fully clothed, right? A cape with sleeves, tights or leggings covering her legs, a corset deeply pulling in her waist. The lines are designed to make her waist look much smaller than it is, and it’s pulling her breasts into this incredible cleavage. It’s not to insult what she’s wearing or her, because again, I think she looks fucking fantastic. She’s gorgeous. But the way she’s presenting herself is not "Look at my body, I’m comfortable with it at 50 in a fuller figure." Instead, she’s hiding the things she’s always told people to be ashamed of and accentuating what she’s always said people should accentuate. It still feels like more of the same.
Taina Brown: Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp: Honestly, from what I’ve seen, the only person there who represented anything resembling plus-size is Ashley Graham, and she’s a beautiful full-figured woman. But it’s the same Victoria’s Secret move—push pause, let people forget the harm, and come back with a couple of token fat people.
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: Barely fat, right? Small-fat people, no other kind of inclusivity. I don’t think they had anyone with disabilities or facial disfigurements, and honestly, not that much diversity in sizing or race. It was still a lot of thin, white, tall women.
Taina Brown: Yeah, no visible disabilities.
Becky Mollenkamp: Honestly, I don’t even care because Victoria’s Secret is so fucking damaging and harmful, and Tyra is part of that. To pretend like it’s anything different is frustrating. I don’t want people giving her kudos for now being something she’s not. I respect Ashley Graham as a model and love that she’s trying to break barriers, but honestly, anyone who cares about equity and inclusivity shouldn’t be part of anything Victoria’s Secret is doing. They need to just go away. Not for a few years, but forever.
Taina Brown: Yeah, I agree. I mean, part of me is like, okay, you make lingerie for skinny people. If that’s what you do, then just say it with your fucking chest. Don’t try to be something you’re not. That’s your history. You have no intention of expanding to normal sizes.
Becky Mollenkamp: Exactly. Just own it and move on, instead of pretending you’re something else. That is kind of the feeling I have around so much of this weight inclusivity, size inclusivity stuff, and brands on the whole. Like Old Navy for a while—they're trying to act like they were going to be this really size-inclusive place. And then, after a big splash with Melissa McCarthy in their ads, slowly but surely, they started pulling back. Now you can only get some of the stuff in stores, and the rest is only online. And even online, they start phasing it out. Just don’t do it. Don’t pretend. I agree with you. And to bring it back to aging, because I know that’s what we want to talk about today—this Victoria's Secret thing. You've got a 50-year-old woman on stage as the "wise old woman," but that’s not really what they’re showing.
Taina Brown: Or you can only get it online, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: Exactly. And when we’re talking about diversity—this is so pervasive in so many things around fashion and beauty. By the way, fashion and beauty are not a big value set for me. So we may have two different perspectives on this piece. But what I see is a huge divide. Fashion and beauty for girls and young women under 40, and then for women over 40. What that basically means is, "Here’s the stuff to either fight aging or give up, be the old lady nobody cares about." There's this dividing line. You’re either trying to look youthful, which is the thing I hate about aging. You're supposed to be trying to look youthful, but when you do that, people say, "Who are you trying to fool? You look pathetic. Stop doing that."
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: Or you're supposed to give up and go out to pasture like a cow. Like, no one looks at you anymore, and you're shopping at Talbots. No offense to Talbots—I own some Talbots, it’s fine. But it’s that "I’m not even trying to be cool anymore" look, and then you feel shitty about yourself. There’s just no winning as always for women as we age.
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: It’s frustrating.
Taina Brown: Yeah, and I have a response to that. But first, I just want to say, for clarity on one of my top three core values being beauty—I think what I’ve learned about core values, and specifically about beauty, is sometimes I’ve bought into what the world calls beautiful. And I’d think, "That’s pretty. That’s beautiful. I should aspire to that or want that." But what I’ve learned is it’s about finding the beauty in everything, whether the world calls it beautiful or not. For a long time, I thought I had to be in opposition to what the world calls beautiful just on principle. But it doesn’t always have to be that way. Sometimes what I think is beautiful and what the world calls beautiful can be the same thing.
Becky Mollenkamp: Before you respond to what I was saying, I just want to address this because I feel this so deeply. My good friend Daisy Gillespie, who runs the Unflattering newsletter on Substack—I'll try to link to it if I remember—also runs a business called Mindful Closet. She and I have had this discussion quite a bit. As feminists, and she’s a personal stylist, but also a deep feminist, I’ve noticed I have this feeling of wanting to reject, like you were saying, all the things that have been put on me—all the conditioning about what it means to be a woman, to be acceptable, to be beautiful. But then I feel like the pendulum swings really far in the other direction, where you either buy into it or you reject it completely. And then you’re left feeling shitty about yourself.
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: And what I find really hard is finding that middle ground between those two things in a world that isn’t addressing it. I feel like the world around me buys into the narrative of one or the other. Either I have to go get everything nipped and tucked and buy all the plumpers and cool clothes, be a certain size if I want to be "beautiful." Or I reject it all and wear sweatpants, and then feel shitty. How do I find that middle ground in a world that isn’t addressing it? So that’s where I was at with it, and I feel what you’re saying.
Taina Brown: Yeah, yeah. A good example of that is the color pink, right? Unless you grow up being a super girly girl, you kind of reject the color pink. When you come into your feminist awakening, maybe you reject pink. I know I did because it represented this feminine ideal based in patriarchal, heteronormative bullshit. But as I aged and matured and tapped into my agency—my power to choose for myself what I like and don’t like, regardless of who or what it aligns with—I thought, "Actually, I like pink. Not all shades of pink, but I like pink." I don’t wear it, but I like it in different forms. That’s what I immediately thought of when you talked about going to opposite extremes and finding the balance in between. But I think, when it comes to aging...
I forgot your original question.
Becky Mollenkamp: It was more about how, as women, we either have to fit into the beauty world or not. There’s this magical cutoff around 40. You’re right at that age, and I’m now past it. But we’re no longer allowed to be desirable, beautiful, or whatever word you want to use.
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: We’re no longer youthful, no longer interesting. Somewhere around 40, or definitely by 50, we’re done—unless you’re actively engaging in trying to "defy aging" by getting plastic surgery, trying to look youthful, quote-unquote.
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: In your 40s, you’re no longer useful, no longer relevant, no longer beautiful, no longer interesting. You’re just no longer human in so many ways. And everything around us paints that narrative. I’ve found my 40s to be this weird age of trying to figure out, "So then what? What does this all mean?" How do I find my place when I’m clearly no longer part of cultural conversations? I want to be. The funny thing about aging, Taina, is the inner part of you never changes. I feel like my soul, my being, my essence—whatever that is—hasn’t felt any different for as long as I can remember.
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: Back to being six years old, that same voice has never changed. But the world around me treats me very differently. I went from being protected, right? Coddled. When you’re little, especially as little white girls, you’re treated as these delicate flowers who need to be cared for, protected because we’re fragile. But then you go into your teenage years and early 20s, and suddenly you become this sexual object, which is all you are. You’re just a body to be consumed. Your body is there for someone to have.
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: And then you go into motherhood. Even for those who don’t have kids, women in their 30s and 40s are now seen as caretakers. You start to lose some of that conventional attraction because you’re no longer seen as a sexual being; you’re seen as a caretaker.
Taina Brown: Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp: But now, I’m entering this next act, which is getting closer to the last act. It’s like, "Now what am I?" I feel like my use to society has ended. It’s like The Handmaid's Tale, where young women are there to breed, and older women are put out to pasture to die because they no longer have value. That’s how I feel sometimes, and I wonder where my place is.
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: Where’s the "party for the rest of us?"
Taina Brown: I totally get that. And I think it’s interesting you brought up that experience as a white girl, and then as a woman navigating it. I think that really speaks to the intersectionality of aging too, because white femininity has always been this thing to protect in our society. So I can see how, as a young white girl, it was like, "protect, protect, protect." A lot of Black girls and girls of color don’t get that experience because they’re either sexualized at a very young age, or they’re looked to as caretakers at a very young age, or both.
Their journey and their experience, and I can say personally, my journey and experience, was different. So you kind of go through that process at hyper speed. When you’re in your twenties, you're the caretaker, and you're always those things as a woman who is not white in this world. I think as we age, what we have in common is that at some point in our journeys, we get to this place where we’re like, "Where is my place?" We get fed up with that narrative. We get fed up with being put on a path that wasn’t chosen by us. If you choose motherhood or choose to be a caretaker, that’s totally fine. But when it’s put upon you by external people and systems, eventually, you wake up one day and you’re like, "Who the hell am I? How do I define myself for myself?"
When it comes to aging, this idea of beauty and usefulness—I think it goes back to capitalism because our bodies are seen as a means of production to keep society going. Once you're no longer able to bear children, then what use does your body have? People with disabilities experience this at every stage of their life. If you're born with a physical or mental disability that doesn't allow you to be a "productive citizen," society has no use for you. We see that in how inaccessible things are: no elevators, no ramps, no accommodations. Health care doesn’t really support people with disabilities, and they have to fight for the support they need, which is exhausting. It makes you ask, "What’s the fucking point?"
When I think about aging, I’ve found that for me, well, for instance, I love skincare. Do I have a consistent, legitimate skincare routine? No, absolutely not. I’m too lazy for that. But I love skincare, so I follow skincare creators who are focused on actual care and not just looking younger. There’s one skincare creator, Charlotte Parler, who also owns her own skincare company. She’s really good about saying, "Hey, we’re aging. That’s normal. Here’s how you can moisturize." It’s very much about maintaining your skin and not trying to look younger. There’s nothing in her product line that says "age-defying" or "beautifying." It’s a neutral approach. She’s also good about calling out the harms in skincare and talking about things like Palestine and how Vaseline had a moment in skincare a few years ago. She’s like, "We wouldn’t have Vaseline if it wasn’t for Indigenous populations, and they don’t get credit for that." I try to keep that kind of content in front of me, and it helps me be okay with how my body is aging.
When I turned 40, I was like, "This is the best day of my life!" I was so excited. I literally woke up feeling like a completely different person. I was just like, "I’m 40, and I have no more fucks left to give." I’m just going to do what’s best for me without causing harm to anyone else. I see it as a privilege to be this age. I have some gray hairs. I wish I had more. I spent a whole year at the salon.
Becky Mollenkamp: Mine are coming in. I’m so excited. I call them my glitter. They’re just starting to glitter, but I’m excited about going gray and just allowing what is to be.
Taina Brown: Yeah, my gray hairs remind me of my grandmother, and I was really close to her. It’s a way for me to connect with her.
Becky Mollenkamp: But Taina, so many women would hear that and freak the fuck out. Like, "My grandmother?!" I love what you’re saying, but I know for so many of us, it’s so deeply internalized—the messaging we hear makes us think, "I’m too young to look like a grandma." And what does any of that even mean? It drives me nuts.
Taina Brown: Yeah, well, I think because sometimes we allow what the world says about what it means to age to put us in these boxes. We talked about this when Dee was on, in the context of politics. The way the world defines humanity is such a limiting view. I’m not talking about mindset or manifesting. I’m talking about how the world limits us by forcing us to define ourselves with these very narrow labels.
I see aging as an opportunity for reinvention. I see it as an opportunity for expansion. When you grow up afraid of change, ambiguity, and the unknown, which the world conditions us to fear, aging feels scary. I'm not saying it's anyone's fault; it's just the way the world works. If you had a traumatic childhood, that fear is even worse because ambiguity creates stress and trauma. When you grow up like that, the idea of aging can feel terrifying. You think, "What’s on the other side of that? I know what I was when I was younger, based on what I could produce and how useful I was to society. But now that I’m older, and my usefulness and youthfulness are gone, what do I have to offer?" That can be scary, but it can also be a beautiful place to be because you can answer that question for yourself.
Becky Mollenkamp: And it can be expansive! I hear so much of what you were saying about that. The thing that struck me was when you mentioned people who choose to become mothers and then become caretakers. You fill that role, even when you want it. The thing that made me think was, yes, and it’s so reductive. I am a mother, and I’m a business owner, and I’m a friend, and I’m a reader, and I’m creative. I’m a lot of things, right? And the world reduces us to these small boxes.
As women, those boxes feel even smaller because we’re either women looking to become moms, we are moms, or we are grandmas. That’s it! Those are the roles we’re told we should be aiming for. It’s so reductive. I think that’s why I can speak to the mom thing. I became a mom very late. When you turned 40, you were out of fucks to give. When I turned 40, I had a baby. That’s different than most folks, but I think it’s pretty unusual here in the Midwest. I was so focused on that I wasn’t thinking much about aging because it was all-consuming.
Taina Brown: Hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp: Instead of going through the aging grief process in my 40s, like a lot of women do, I was going through the grieving process of, "Who am I?" The box you get put in as a mom feels so small, and there’s so much guilt if you don’t want to stay in that box. There’s this horrible guilt and grieving process, like, "I’ve lost my sense of identity, and now I’m just this thing. But that doesn’t feel like enough." Now, getting ready to go into my 50s, with my kid getting more independent, I’m starting to recover that sense of, "Who am I besides a mom?"
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: What I’m discovering now is, in the same way you did in your 40s, I’m getting closer to 50 and realizing, "I am out of fucks to give." And the best part is that expansiveness! Like you’re saying, I get to discover who I am, free from all the constraints and boxes. The only box left is, "We don’t even notice you," which feels so freeing. It’s like, "Hell yeah, you’re not paying attention anymore!" It’s so freeing to feel like, for the first time in my life, my identity feels expansive, where I get to be whatever I want. No one’s even paying attention to how I’m perceived anymore. And there’s freedom in that! I do think there’s grief too, though.
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: And I also want to honor the privilege piece. When you were talking, it hit me—I know our experiences with aging are different based on identity, but the fact that I’ve even had the chance to go through this grief process is a privilege. It means I’ve had so much privilege in my life that it wasn’t until now that I’m grieving not being perceived, not feeling worthy or valid. There are people who experience that from birth. So I appreciate the refocus. I think of aging as a privilege, but I also think of it as a reflection of my privilege in a different way. I wasn't really emotionally resonating with until now. So thank you. That's really great to think about.
Taina Brown: You're welcome. And I think, just putting on my coaching hat for a second, I was thinking about someone who might be listening to this and feels like, "Okay, you’re talking about expansiveness and possibility, but that feels overwhelming and scary. Where do I even begin? I’ve spent so much of my life perceiving myself through the eyes of others. How do I perceive myself for myself?"
To that I would say, if it feels overwhelming not knowing how you want to live the rest of your life, start with how you don’t want to live it. Start narrowing the expanse that way. Once you've eliminated that, refocus and think about, "Now that I know what I don’t like or want, what’s left?" Because I don’t want to leave anyone feeling gutted after listening to this episode with no idea what to do. I’ve experienced that before, and it’s disorienting.
Becky Mollenkamp: Sure, me too! It is disorienting, and I appreciate you bringing that up. I love your approach. It’s a great way to look at it. I’ll offer another perspective that worked for me. I took kind of a "Marie Kondo" approach, where I examined one thing at a time.
For me, it started when I went through major life changes: I got divorced, I lost my brother, and I changed careers, all before turning 40. It was like I had a blank slate, and I started asking myself, "Does this still spark joy?" At the time, I was a vegetarian. I questioned whether I still wanted to be one, and eventually, I started eating meat again. It was literally every little thing—even pink! I used to say I hated pink, but then I started questioning, "Do I really hate pink, or did I just decide that because it felt too girly?" I realized I actually like pink. Look behind me—there’s pink in my room!
Taina Brown: Yeah, you got pink in your room!
Becky Mollenkamp: Exactly! So I started examining all these pieces of myself that I had decided were "me" and asked, "Is this still true for me? Does this still bring me joy?" If it didn’t, I let it go. I think that’s similar to what you’re saying—starting with what you don’t like, but also looking at what you do like and seeing if it’s still true. Over time, I started painting a whole new picture of myself, and it’s funny because now, 15 years later, I can see there are some things that are still very much the same, but so much has changed. For the first time, I allowed myself to say, "Who am I? What do I like?"
Taina Brown: Yeah, I love that. There’s no urgency to figure it out all at once. It’s a process. Let it take the time it needs to take. That reminds me of Stacey London from What Not to Wear. She’s an example of someone in fashion who’s aged and realized, "I had it all wrong back then, and I’m in a different place now."
Becky Mollenkamp: Ooh, Stacey London. My friend Daisy wrote something about her. I think she still had some issues with her, but what do you think? Has Stacey done a good job of recognizing the harm she caused?
Taina Brown: Yeah, I haven’t done a deep dive, but I know she’s publicly admitted that the show was steeped in diet culture and weight stigma. I found her through a community called Chronicon, which is for people with chronic issues. Stacey has a chronic health issue, and she spoke at one of their events. That’s how I started following her. I think she’s done more to acknowledge the harm than someone like Tyra Banks, for example.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah. Another person I’ll mention is Paulina Porizkova. I hate that these are both white women, but she’s a former supermodel who now focuses on aging naturally. She’s showing her face without surgery, but I do wish she would be more inclusive of different body types. I mean, she’s a naturally thin supermodel, so that’s part of it. But still, I’d love to see more conversations about body diversity.
Taina Brown: Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: And Justine Bateman is another one. She wrote a book called Face, talking about how women in Hollywood are pressured to fight aging while men are allowed to age more naturally. There’s a huge difference between men’s longevity without plastic surgery and women’s.
Taina Brown: Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp: And another thing about aging that bugs me is the whole, "You don’t look 50" compliment. I posted about it on Threads recently. People say that like it’s a compliment, but it’s not. I look exactly like a 49-year-old should look—this is what 49 looks like on me. Everyone’s 49 looks different. We need to stop saying things like, "You look great for your age" or "You don’t look your age." It’s not a compliment, and it’s not helpful.
Taina Brown: Yeah. Exactly.
Becky Mollenkamp: We have to stop that. We do it to each other as women, like on the whole, that stuff has to stop.
Taina Brown: They're still stuck on this idea of what a certain age is supposed to look like, right? Like you're supposed to look a certain way. It can seem like a compliment, but it's really not. And the last thing I want to say about the Tyra thing is, I acknowledge the intersectionality of her experience as a Black woman in the modeling industry, which is dominated by the white gaze.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yes, G-A-Z-E, gaze.
Taina Brown: Yeah, not the gay as in homosexual, but the white gaze, as in looking. And Tyra, as a Black woman, has a body type that many Black women have, though not all. So I understand that her experience was complicated, and I can’t fully grasp her struggle, but I acknowledge that there was one. However, that doesn't excuse the harm. This is where the both-and comes into play. Yes, she was probably harmed by the industry, but it can also be true that she perpetuated harm as well.
Becky Mollenkamp: Right! Just like how Janice Dickinson was harmed by the male gaze and then perpetuated it, or how my mom, love you, Mom, was harmed by the male gaze and passed that onto me. We can understand it, but that doesn't make it okay. And we have the choice to break that cycle. I hope that's where Tyra is. She was navigating both the male and white gaze, and I can’t imagine how tough that was. But now, at 50, I want her to be more vocal about it—not just apologizing, but showing real growth.
Taina Brown: Yeah, exactly.
Becky Mollenkamp: I’d love for her to be out there, not just walking runways but actively talking about how wrong it was, and not in a way where she hates herself for it, but with understanding and a full-throated acknowledgment of the past. And honestly, I don’t think Victoria’s Secret is the right platform for that growth.
Taina Brown: Agreed. One last question for you, Becky, and for our listeners: I was watching CBS News, and they had a self-help guru on who blew up on TikTok and got a book deal. Her name is Kayla Shaheen, and she’s 25. I found myself thinking, is she a little young to be a self-help guru? Am I being ageist, or is there something to the idea that maybe a self-help guru should be older?
Becky Mollenkamp: Ha, great question. I just looked her up—published by Simon & Schuster, no less. She's got a couple of journals like Lucky Girl Journal and 369 Journal, which sounds like shadow work stuff. And I find that interesting. I don’t know if she’s a therapist, so that’s another layer to consider beyond the age thing. My initial reaction is, “You’re 25, what life advice do you have for me?” But then I think, someone who’s 100 could say that to me at 50. They’re right, and they’re wrong.
Taina Brown: Exactly.
Becky Mollenkamp: Age can bring wisdom, but also rigid thinking. So it’s not just about age; it’s about how someone approaches their work. Is she acknowledging her age and experience? Or is she acting like she knows everything? That's the difference for me.
Taina Brown: Yes! And in the interview, she didn’t even acknowledge her age, which felt problematic.
Becky Mollenkamp: That’s a red flag. If you’re 25 and offering life advice, that should be acknowledged. She might have a ton of wisdom from life experience, but you have to be upfront about where you’re coming from.
Taina Brown: Yeah, and I checked her website. It says she's trained in certain things, but no formal degrees or certifications. So it’s like, where’s this coming from?
Becky Mollenkamp: Right, and as a coach with a journalism background, I get that credentials aren’t everything. But in the self-help world, especially for white women, there’s a responsibility to show up with integrity and lived experience, not just labels. If you can't show me that you’ve done the work—read Audre Lorde, bell hooks, understood intersectionality—then it’s concerning.
Taina Brown: Absolutely.
Becky Mollenkamp: Alright, we’re running long again! Thank you all for sticking with us. And remember, we’re doing a live discussion on YouTube on November 6th, post-election. Mark your calendars, and don’t forget to vote on November 5th! Thanks, Tyra—I mean, Taina.
Taina Brown: Make a plan