OVER THE YEARS, Jennifer Aniston has had her personal life intensely scrutinised by tabloids and magazines.
“Will she ever find love?” “Is she pregnant or merely full from lunch?” “Will poor childless Jen ever be truly happy?” That kind of thing.
And now the actress has had enough.
Yesterday, Aniston penned a scathing op-ed for The Huffington Post entitled For The Record in which she stated that she is “not pregnant” and is “fed up” with the media’s coverage of her private life.
I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of “journalism,” the “First Amendment” and “celebrity news.”
She wrote of her and her husband, Justin Theroux, being regularly harassed by “aggressive photographers” trying to get a photo “even if it means endangering us or the unlucky pedestrians who happen to be nearby”.
She went on to condemn the media’s continued objectification of women and perpetuation of false beauty ideals.
The objectification and scrutiny we put women through is absurd and disturbing. The way I am portrayed by the media is simply a reflection of how we see and portray women in general, measured against some warped standard of beauty.
We use celebrity “news” to perpetuate this dehumanizing view of females, focused solely on one’s physical appearance, which tabloids turn into a sporting event of speculation. Is she pregnant? Is she eating too much? Has she let herself go? Is her marriage on the rocks because the camera detects some physical “imperfection”?
Aniston went on to describe the “sheer amount of resources being spent right now by press trying to simply uncover whether or not I am pregnant” and set the record straight on the matter.
Here’s where I come out on this topic: we are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child. We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies. That decision is ours and ours alone.
We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own “happily ever after” for ourselves.
The op-ed has provoked a positive reaction on Twitter with many praising her for speaking out so strongly.
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*applause*
