When Britney Spears became a pop superstar at the age of 16, it was the culmination of all her childhood dreams. The video for her debut single …Baby One More Time was based on her own concept – schoolkids in uniform busting loose when the bell rang. Spears created that image; she controlled it.
It wasn’t long before she started noticing older men leering at her during live performances. The objectification had begun. There would be no more autonomy for Spears, especially when her emotionally abusive and entirely money-driven alcoholic father was appointed as her legal conservator.
For 13 nightmarish years, he controlled and gaslighted every single aspect of her life and career. Now she’s free, or so one hopes, to tell her terribly sad and angering story. The Woman in Me is an unfiltered howl of rage against a sexist, misogynist, patriarchal culture enabled by a corrupt hand-in-glove media and legal system. A toxic litany of double standards.
Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter
- Let’s think before we rip up and start again – on the tactile legacy of pop
- Feminist books: Reading recommendations for smashing the patriarchy
Her first love, Justin Timberlake, broke off their relationship via text message, before releasing a hit album in which he portrayed Spears as someone who broke his vulnerable little heart. Timberlake cheated on her constantly. He also demanded that she have an abortion. Spears complied for fear of losing him. She sank into a deep depression thereafter.
Kevin Federline, a talentless opportunist who fathered Spears’ beloved children, barely spoke to her once he secured a record deal. He gained sole custody when the courts decided that she was an unfit mother (she was, clearly, never a substance abuser). The tabloids lapped it all up, ghoulishly reporting on every harrowing detail of the breakdown that they’d contributed to.
