Lemonade.

The other night I was flipping through the channels on TV.

This, by the way, is a rarity when you have two children under the age of four.

But I saw an episode of a game show called Deal or No Deal.

This brought back a lot of memories.

Megan, open the case. Back in 2006 I had a short stint as a briefcase girl on the US version of the game show. Now my experience on the U.S. version of the game show. Now, my experience on the show, which included holding, said briefcase on stage, alongside 25 other women doing the same,

it was, for me, fascinating. I had studied acting in college at Northwestern

University and like a lot of the other women standing on stage with me acting was what I was pursuing.

So while Deal or No Deal wasn't about acting, I was still really grateful as an auditioning

actress to have a job that could pay my bills. I had income, I was part of the

union, I had health insurance. It was great. And yet I had also studied international relations in college.

And there were times when I was on set at Deal or No Deal and thinking back to my time working

as an intern at the U.S. Embassy in Argentina and Buenos Aires,

and being in the motor cave with the Secretary of Treasury at the time and being valued specifically for my brain.

Here, I was being valued for something quite the opposite.

I mean, you have to imagine just to paint the picture for you

that before the taping of the show all the girls

we would line up and there were different stations for having your lashes put on or your

extensions put in or the padding in your bra. We were even given spray tan vouchers each week.

Because there was a very cookie cutter idea

of precisely what we should look like.

It was solely about beauty and not necessarily about brains.

...