From anorexics to “minimalist” clothing enthusiasts to just plain playing into stereotypes, in every woman who has made her way to fame through the entertainment industry, there seems to be an element of self-exploitation.

However, it also seems we pretend to not notice these things women undergo, or are even forced to endure, on their road to stardom. Everyone praises the talents of actresses Jennifer Aniston and Debra Messing without batting an eye at their apparent extreme weight loss. Britney Spears (who I’m sure is still human, although she seems more like a Barbie doll every day) has endured so much molding and shaping of her “image” that she’s been appropriated as public property — especially since virtually nothing on her body has been left to our imaginations … what hasn’t been revealed has been translucently masked behind two thin pieces of fabric or hidden delicately below the waistband of her super-low-rise jeans.

With all of this going on, I’ve struggled to find famous female role models in entertainment since I was a teenager to whom I could relate and aspire to emulate in some fashion without feeling like I was encouraged to ignore, exploit or abuse myself in some way in order to truly hold them up as an ideal.

When I was very young, I don’t remember having so many problems finding young women to look up to. I think it has a lot to do with how women’s characters have been developed within television series (and in movies to a lesser extent) or how they have been portrayed within the music industry.

For instance, back when I was a kid, there were Melissa Joan Hart, from “Clarissa Explains it All,” and Candace Cameron, who played D.J. Tanner on “Full House.”

Even though Hart currently stars in “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” (along with another of my childhood idols, Soleil Moon Frye of “Punky Brewster” fame) and is much more visible these days, both of these women seem to have had relatively no problem avoiding over-sexualization or worries about their appearance. The television shows they starred in didn’t require these things from their characters, therefore they haven’t been portrayed as such in real life.

While that should have carried over with the Olsen twins, they were apparently exempt … men older than me have their 18th birthday circled on their calendars. Does this mean that they can lust after them wholeheartedly in 187 days and not feel like child molesters?

There is something seriously wrong with this picture. Famous women should be able to be sexy without being sexualized, but that’s obviously not the case — especially in the case of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. All I had to do was search for “Olsen twins” on the Internet and on the first page I went to, I found tabloid photos of them on a beach, another photo with a close-up of one of the twins’ thong sticking out above her pants and an inane, yet enlightening post to a message board proclaiming, “Ash IS By Far The Hottst Of The 2 Man Id Do Her Any Time.”

We watched these two girls grow up right in front of our eyes. Is nothing sacred anymore? What’s worse, it’s not even like other people are doing it to them — it seems like they’re playing in to this hypersexualized image of themselves. How is this type of behavior from both ends not encouraging young women to get men to look at them like that? How can these two objectified 17-year-old girls be positive role models for anyone?

This is not a lament over our society’s “lost morals.” But I am lamenting the fact that even some of the most famous women in entertainment aren’t allowed to be “normal” people. Is this because no one is interested in seeing women who aren’t desperately playing into mythical fantasies of what women should look like?

However, not every female entertainer is that way — these are the women who deserve role model status. For example, there are outstanding “normal” actresses, like Camryn Manheim of “The Practice,” and Molly Shannon, who left “Saturday Night Live” two years ago and is now on to bigger projects. There are still some “normal” women like Tori Amos and Ani Difranco in the music industry, too — if you can manage to get past Britney, Xtina and their gyrating, body-oiled ilk.

We need to send the message that we want to see real women in entertainment — women we’d want to imitate ourselves. We owe it to them and to ourselves to expect nothing less from our role models than being “normal” people.