Jennifer Aniston’s launches powerful online backlash to latest pregnancy rumours
In recent weeks tabloid preoccupation with the Hollywood star's childless status reached a frenzied peak when it concluded she was pregnant - again. She's not - again. In the 15 years since the star was married to Brad Pitt, Aniston has faced constant media speculation about pregnancy. Her 2015 marriage to Justin Theroux cranked up the scrutiny even further. She has now taken to The Huffington Post in an eloquent essay, titled "For the Record" where she says she is fed up with media and society constantly defining a woman's value based solely on marital and maternal status.
Aniston outlines how she and her husband can barely leave the house without walking into a scrum of photographers. While it’s personally irritating and invasive, and sometimes physically dangerous, she fears it points to a deeper problem in today’s society:
“If I am some kind of symbol to some people out there, then clearly I am an example of the lens through which we, as a society, view our mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, female friends and colleagues. 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. Sometimes cultural standards just need a different perspective so we can see them for what they really are - a collective acceptance... a subconscious agreement. We are in charge of our agreement. Little girls everywhere are absorbing our agreement, passive or otherwise. And it begins early.
The message that girls are not pretty unless they’re incredibly thin, that they’re not worthy of our attention unless they look like a supermodel or an actress on the cover of a magazine is something we’re all willingly buying into. This conditioning is something girls then carry into womanhood.
We use celebrity “news” to perpetuate a 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 says she is now concerned that the unwarranted tabloid attention, she once considered almost “comic book” in its outlook, is now having an immense effect on the way she and other women live their lives.
“The stalking and objectification I’ve experienced first-hand, going on decades now, reflects the warped way we calculate a woman’s worth. This past month has illuminated for me how much we define a woman’s value based on her marital and maternal status. The sheer amount of resources being spent right now by press trying to simply uncover whether or not I am pregnant (for the bajillionth time... but who’s counting) points to the perpetuation of this notion that women are somehow incomplete, unsuccessful, or unhappy if they’re not married with children.
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. Let’s make that decision for ourselves and for the young women in this world who look to us as examples. Let’s make that decision consciously, outside of the tabloid noise. We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own “happily ever after” for ourselves.
Yes, I may become a mother some day, and since I’m laying it all out there, if I ever do, I will be the first to let you know. But I’m not in pursuit of motherhood because I feel incomplete in some way, as our celebrity news culture would lead us all to believe. I resent being made to feel “less than” because my body is changing and/or I had a burger for lunch and was photographed from a weird angle and therefore deemed one of two things: “pregnant” or “fat.” Not to mention the painful awkwardness that comes with being congratulated by friends, co-workers and strangers alike on one’s fictional pregnancy (often a dozen times in a single day).”
Aniston concludes by wearily accepting that “from years of experience” tabloid practices will not change any time soon. “What can change is our awareness and reaction to the toxic messages buried within these seemingly harmless stories served up as truth and shaping our ideas of who we are. We get to decide how much we buy into what’s being served up, and maybe some day the tabloids will be forced to see the world through a different, more humanized lens because consumers have just stopped buying the bullshit.”
