Millie Bobby Brown, 18, on the frustrating way young women are ‘dragged down’
Millie Bobby Brown is weighing in on the impossible standards that young women face today.
The Stranger Things star — who, at 18, is also a producer on projects like Netflix’s Enola Holmes franchise — spoke with Netflix’s online magazine Queue about her busy career, and feeling underestimated as a young woman in the industry.
“I had to prove a lot because I am young and I am a girl, and people could think that this is something that has been handed to me,” the Godzilla actress told the outlet. “I wanted to prove myself on the first [Enola Holmes]. On the second one, I felt more comfortable because I knew I was capable of it.”
Brown has also been judged publicly by the masses, some of whom think that she should dress a certain way due to her age.
“Young women are dragged down for many different things,” Brown explained to Queue. “If it’s our maturity, if it’s the way we dress, if it’s the things we say, if it’s the choices we make, we will never be enough.”
She added, “It’s for us to find camaraderie and sisterhood in that. And to stand together and say, ‘We are enough.’ We have to stick together, breaking those stereotypes and standards.”
Earlier this year, Brown opened up to Allure about dealing with haters online.
“It’s really hard to be hated on when you don’t know who you are yet,” she said at the time. “So it’s like, ‘What do they hate about me? ’Cause I don’t know who I am.’ It’s almost like, ‘Okay, I’m going to try being this today.’ [And then they say], ‘Oh, no, I hate that.’ ‘Okay. Forget that. I’m going to try being this today.’ ‘Oh, my God! I hate when you do that.’ Then you just start shutting down because you’re like, ‘Who am I meant to be? Who do they need me to be for them?’ Then I started to grow more, and my family and friends really helped. It helped to be able to understand that I don’t need to be anything they said that I need to be. I just have to develop within myself. That’s what I did.”
In 2019, the Netflix star told Harper’s Bazaar how she approaches trolls.
"Internet trolls have never bothered me,” she explained. “I don’t want to sit here and say they do, because some people it genuinely does get to and I wouldn’t want to lie and say they hurt my feelings when they don’t. I honestly actually feel really bad for them because who knows what they’re going through."
In an Instagram post celebrating her 16th birthday in 2020, she admitted that the comments do sometimes affect her.
"There are moments I get frustrated from the inaccuracy, inappropriate comments, sexualization and unnecessary insults that ultimately have resulted in pain and insecurity for me," she wrote. "But not ever will I be defeated. I’ll continue doing what I love and spreading the message in order to make change.”
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