When you're the mother of a young daughter, figuring out how to raise her as a capable, happy individual who isn't overly concerned about her weight, her appearance or the size of her boobs can be a real challenge. Raising a daughter comes with special challenges that sons don't always face, like navigating the virgin/whore dichotomy and finding the balance between being too submissive and being too assertive. And when girls consume media that shows off skinny, conventionally attractive girls in the background of story lines focused on men, some mothers might worry that their daughters aren't getting the right message about their own importance and capability.

Geena Davis agrees.The actress sat down with the Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Blumenstein to talk about the kinds of role models young girls should be seeing in the media. After starring in Thelma and Louise, Davis realized how few starring roles there really are for women in entertainment, and how few movies focus mainly on the struggles of women in a way that doesn't directly involve finding a man. The feeling inspired Davis to take a serious scientific look at the G-rated movies that she was showing her daughter.

What'd she find? " What we found was that in G-rated movies, for every one female character, there were three male characters. If it was a group scene, it would change to five to one, male to female," she said. " Of the female characters that existed, the majority are highly stereotyped and/or hypersexualized. To me, the most disturbing thing was that the female characters in G-rated movies wear the same amount of sexually revealing clothing as the female characters in R-rated movies." So what can parents do? They should be vigilant about the movies they select for their children, and focus on reinforcing female characters who have their own story lines, their own needs and their own wants, rather than ones who are little more than pretty background decorations.