Britney Spears and the Punishment of Women's Pain
(an important, disturbing article. I read her book, and was absolutely horrified at the treatment she received from her family, from the medical profession, and from the judicial system, let alone the fucking media!)
Britney Spears and the Punishment of Women’s Pain
12/20/2023 by Kendall Ciesemier
A new podcast from Ms., United Bodies will explore the lived experience of health through the lens of gender, disability, culture and politics—because more women suffer like Britney Spears has, and we need to free them too.
Britney Spears supporters gather to protest at the #FreeBritney Rally on Sept. 29, 2021, in New York City. The Free Britney Rally coincided with Spears’ conservatorship hearing which was held in Los Angeles at the same time. (Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty Images)
I remember seeing photos of a bald Britney Spears papered all over magazine covers at the grocery checkout aisle as a teenager. I assumed, like many, that Spears was sick—and by sick, I meant crazy. I would never do that. Why would she ruin her reputation? I felt pity for her. Over 16 years later, I have a different take. After reading Britney Spears’ tell-all memoir, The Woman In Me, and navigating my own young womanhood and chronic illness, I now see myself and the women around me in her story. In many ways, her struggles represent the underbelly of young womanhood, the trials and pain many of us face in private, only exaggerated and amplified due to her position in pop culture and the abusive forces around her. In her memoir, Spears tells the story of her reproductive and familial trauma and the ways in which she has struggled to keep herself and her pain palatable. The repercussions of not being able to hide her suffering as an uber-famous pop star with sex appeal and talent, was a 13-year conservatorship put in place by her father that stripped her of her legal personhood. This outcome is extreme, yes, but her story follows the trajectory of women who experience pain, traveled by women as far back as ancient Greece and Rome who were deemed hysterical, and as recent as women who have fought for their pain to be believed in 2023.
At a time when we are reclaiming women’s progress after the overturn of Roe and reliving the pleasures of girlhood—through this summer’s multi-million dollar success of Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Barbie—Britney’s memoir of her coming of age in the same industry reveals a glaring barrier to women’s advancement: a disrespect, pathologization, and punishment of women’s pain. While we have expanded the ways in which one can be a good woman or a “good girl”—we can now be successful, wealthy, and in charge—we haven’t moved the needle on our definition of an unsettling or unsavory woman: one who can’t collapse her needs, who asks us to care for her pain, rather than brand her for having it.
The Woman in Me, a memoir by Britney Spears, was released in October.
At the time Spears shaved her head in February of 2007, she had four released studio albums with one on the way. She was the center of the pop music machine living in the service of fame and fortune, both her own and the entourage of people surrounding her. After a string of traumatic yet woefully common life events, grief and depression overwhelmed her life. Her first serious long term relationship had ended. She had terminated a pregnancy she wanted at the request of her then boyfriend Justin Timberlake. (and the story of that termination should make your blood boil. F*** justin!!) She had two baby boys and experienced severe postpartum anxiety and depression. Her aunt—the family member she was closest to—had died suddenly, and now she was being separated from her children in a custody battle with her ex Kevin Federline. Throughout these experiences, Spears, like many of us, questioned her reality, writing that she had been made “the bad guy” and was beginning to believe it true, thinking of herself as under some “sort of curse.”
. . . . .
Britney Spears is now free from her conservatorship and is able to tell us her story, but I worry we might miss her point. Instead of claiming her memoir devastatingly sad or salaciously juicy, we should receive it as awfully predictable and a sign of what still holds women back. Sure, it’s more fun to celebrate when women can hide or package their pain well with a smile and a new bop, but far more women suffer like Spears has, and we need to free them too. It’s stories like Britney’s that so often go underexplored in modern discourse, the ones that impact our lived experience of health, that engage gender, disability, culture and politics. That’s why I created United Bodies, a podcast that explores how different components of our health—mental, physical, social and spiritual—interplay with one another and intersect with the whole of our identity.
United Bodies will launch early in the new year and new episodes will appear here. You can also listen in wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to Ms. emails to stay up to date on our launch.
https://msmagazine.com/2023/12/20/britney-spears-and-womens-pain/