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

Comments

[Karly Randolph Pitman]

The fact that women are so hard on their bodies, and that the inherent miracle of a woman's body---its ability to grow and nurture a new life---is denigrated by society brings me to tears. It brings me to tears, brings me to anger, and brings me to action. It brings me to my life purpose, which is helping women love and accept their bodies, and themselves.

I believe that learning to love and accept our bodies is one of the greatest issues facing women today: I have yet to meet a woman who is unaffected by body image "stuff." And while body bashing manifests as a physical issue, I believe that it is, at its core, a spiritual one: a drive for perfection, rooted in a fear of unworthiness. Bashing our bodies for being imperfect -- fat, flabby, wrinkled, grey, stretch marked -- isn't really about our bodies. We see ourselves as imperfect, and therefore, unacceptable. Our bodies, because they're the part of ourselves that is most visible to the world, are simply the most convenient scapegoat: the outer target of our inner critic.

My husband, playing devil's advocate, asked me an interesting question the other day: Who cares if women love their bodies? Why does it matter? Granted, this comes from a person who has never struggled with food or body issues, and as a man, his body hasn't endured the scrutiny of my own. But his question is a good one: Why does it matter?

Here's why it matters: Body hatred affects everyone around us, not just ourselves. It trickles down in insidious ways: seven year old girls who think they need to lose weight, or teens whose focus is not on figuring out what they want to do with their lives, but rather on how they can emulate the latest celebrity. Yes, those are direct consequences of our collective body bashing. Every 3rd grader on a diet? That's my fault, and yours.

But body hatred also trickles down like this: You're bitchy and irritable (often because you're on a diet, and hungry) or you're sad and depressed (your self esteem is shot since you gained fifteen pounds) so you snap at your daughter, overreacting. Or you gossip about your thin, beautiful neighbor, because you're jealous of her ease with her body. Or you refrain from going to a job interview because you're scared: you don't feel confident enough in your appearance to go.

Body bashing keeps us stuck. It keeps us anxious, and unconfident, believing we're never good enough. It keeps us stressed, where everything is a possible trigger: magazines, TV shows, parties, holidays, family get-togethers. We exhaust ourselves with comparisons: comparing our bodies to other women's'; comparing our bodies to our own (If only I could look like I did ten years/twenty pounds ago.)

Loving our bodies matters because we can't hate our bodies and love ourselves. We are holistic creatures. We are comprised of body, mind, and spirit. They are not as separate as we might think: what we think about one part of ourselves seeps into the others.

But, even more importantly, here's why body acceptance matters: I can't be the woman, mother, wife, daughter, friend, or person I wish to be if I am consumed with thoughts about my body. You can't be the woman, mother, wife, daughter, friend, or person you wish to be if you are consumed with thoughts about your body. Multiply this factor by the millions of women who dislike their bodies---and according to recent surveys by Dove, it's nearly all of us---and what do you have? Generations of women who are trapped; their dreams, passions and deepest desires on hold; women who are unable to offer their talents to a world that needs their help.

Ladies, the world needs our healing. If you think the world would be a better place if more women ran it, think about how we could run it if we devoted all the time, energy, and money we devote towards fixing our bodies into fixing the world.

I remember my personal epiphany: I had just turned 30, and realized that I had spent the last decade trying to regain the super-skinny body I had as a bulimic 19 year old. I thought that if only I ate really, really healthy food, I could have that skinny body again. Nope. The only way I could be that skinny again was if I starved myself, which I wasn't willing to do.

So I surrendered. I released my body war. I prayed and asked God to remove my desire to be skinny. And I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed. My transformation didn't occur overnight. Like everyone, I am a work in progress. But that step was the first in reclaiming my life: releasing the shackles that kept me trapped, imprisoned by the false belief that life would begin once I finally lost ten pounds.

Now I am free and clear to do the work that I was born to do: encouraging women. I am free and clear to connect with women, my children, my family and with the world. I am free and clear to dive into myself, to be the best me that I can be, without fear; to love and accept all parts of myself, without judgment.

Learning to love our bodies is serious business. Its effects are profound, and far reaching. It may be some of the most important work that you do. It is some of the most important work that I have done.

Love your body; change your life. Love your body; change the world.

Love your body: it matters.

Karly Randolph Pitman
www.firstourselves.com

[Tammy Vitale]

Men aren't the only ones who can write creation stories. It's just that, like HIS-story, they're the ones who have grabbed the stage. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite - read the fractured feminist fairytales if you don't know where to start. Learn that Jack Zipes (he's ok) has identified something like 53 versions of little read riding hood - and the beginning versions she was much smarter. Write down the stories in your own head then pick them apart and throw away the pices that are not working for you. Rewrite the rest - you get to choose what you want to keep, every single moment of your life. Create your own world.
Great post!

[Elaine and Kevin Phoenix]

Lisa, this is a wonderful site. We have raised 3 (one of each!), now our youngest is raising her 1st (a boy).

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Lool at the "Blogosphere" on the left hand side bar, then click on the "Add Your BlogPosts Free". Full instructions for installing on your blog are included.

[Finally Fifty]

The "body wars" are here to stay, I think. Even my teenage boys worry about their bodies and weight! I just spent the last year losing 35 pounds and a day doesn't go by when I look in the mirror and still feel fed up with my "old" body. Your article will stay with me daily as I try to break free from the body image chains!

[Donna]

What a great post!! I agree that we can constantly re-create ourselves. I feel bad for Britney but she can make a new start if she desires too. She's still young and is very talented. This was great! Thanks!

[mod*mom]

nice to find your blog + read about you.
britney: mothering is a full-time job + honor
america: all celebs get photoshopped
lactivist: try a different social network

[Siti Nurhaliza]

Hi..just stopping by to say a Happy New Year...interesting post there, and i've bookmarked this blog too...keep up the good job ;)

[Suzanne Bird-Harris]

All I can say is we are in control of only a few things in this life: our thoughts, our words and our deeds. If we strive to be 100% responsible for just those things, we'll be busy the rest of our lives and have no time to worry what the rest of the world thinks.

[HostingGeek]

What happened to Britney? She was an awesome singer, and now..