So...Britney, America Ferrera and a lactivist walk into a bar...

Cross-posted from BlogHer.

So, Britney, America Ferrera and a lactivist walk into a bar.

"What'll you have?" asks the barista.

BRITNEY: "I'm one of the world's wealthiest women and most popular performers, but my heart is broken, my liver is shot, my nerves are crumbling under the strain of caring for two toddlers and working too. And you know that dream where you show up at high school naked and everyone laughs at you? That just happened to me at the Video Music Awards and every media outlet on the planet is saying I'm old, ugly, washed-up and ruined at 25. I want someone to tell the world who I really am." More: Britney -- The Fallout by Jenny Lauck

AMERICA FERRERA: "I'm an award-winning actress who is hottie-mc-hot-hot and I have a hit show. But nobody knows what I really look like because everyone Photoshops me into someone else's body. Once, just once, I'd like my image to appear on a magazine cover without someone uglying me up or glamorizing me down a ribcage or two. I want someone to show the world who I really am." More: Learning the Lessons of Ugly Betty: Real Women Have Curves by Maria Niles

LACTIVIST: "After I worked like crazy for nine months to grow my baby, birth it, and figure out how to breastfeed this screaming machine, Facebook nuked my profile because I showed photos of my baby nursing. Apparently, the guys running the site think my baby's dinner is more obscene that the not-safe-for-work sites on Facebook. I want their mothers' email addresses. And I want to show and tell the world who I really am." More: Everything I never wanted to know about breasts I learned from Facebook by Mir Kamin

BARISTA: "You'll need these." She plops three laptops and three sets of earmuffs on the bar.

BRITNEY: "Ummmm...?"

BARISTA: "Here's how to go online. (clicks) Now here's how to blog. If you want the world to learn who you are, ladies, you can't risk waiting for someone else to write your truth. You're going to have to show and tell it yourself, or it will never see the light. Look at your own news coverage from this week, hello? Do you not read Wil Wheaton?"

Silence

LACTIVIST: "...And the earmuffs?"

FERRERA: "They block the noise about us."

BARISTA: "Nooo, hon, they're not that strong. These earmuffs are a reminder that you need to stop listening to that noise -- especially the voices inside your head that tell you what these people say matters."

BRITNEY: "Plus they're dead sexy. Very 'hot construction worker'. I have these boots..."

BARISTA: "I need a drink."

The end

I know, keep my day job, right? But why vent about the portrayal of female personalities in mainstream media when I can tell a story instead? This post feels better than me throwing a world-class tantrum about the number of media outlets stealing the voices of women by changing, removing and/or framing their images in ways that are abusive to their subjects and rotten to the rest of us.

What BlogHer editors initially reported as a hot trend has evolved into an epidemic.  Maria Niles looks back at recent weeks in her piece, Learning the Lessons of Ugly Betty: Real Women Have Curves:

"Hot on the heels of the Redbook/Faith Hill photoshopping outrage (Read posts from ClizBiz and Susan Wagner) and despite the previous positive response to Jaime Lee Curtis' More magazine reality photos and the Dove Real Beauty campaign, we are treated to the latest media message that real women's bodies are unacceptable..."

While BlogHer cannot stop the madness, I'm eager to have us provide alternative perspective on these women these events. So tell me, please, pretty please: If you were sitting at a bar with Britney, America or this Lactivist, or even a young daughter, granddaughter, niece or neighbor, what advice would you give her?

Comments are open -- I invite you to join us here. If you contribute some great advice, I'll be back with a list for all of us to tape on our mirrors next week, including links back to your blogs.

And now, off to mix myself another day at the keyboards,

Barista Lisa aka Surfette

Tags: britney spears, america ferrera, breastfeeding