Jennifer Aniston: “We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete.”

By MiNDFOOD

Jennifer Aniston: “We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete.”
Jennifer Aniston has voiced her utter disgust at the media's obsession with pregnancy rumours and begs for an end to valuing women based on their role as mother or wife.

Jennifer Aniston is fed up, and she has every right to be.

In an open letter she penned for Huffington Post on Tuesday, Aniston responded to the ongoing scrutiny she suffers from the media on a daily basis.

She began by addressing those (almost constant) pregnancy rumours, “for the record I am not pregnant”. ” What I am,” she continued, “is fed up. I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guide of “journalism.” and the “First Amendment” and “celebrity news.”

Aniston called out media for perpetuating irresponsible beauty standards and encouraging unrealistic expectations of what it means to be a woman, in today’s day and age.

“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.”

“This past month in particular has illuminated for me how much we define a woman’s value based on her marital and maternal status,” she writes.

Aniston went on to say how appalled she was at the unrelenting pursuit of this theory of pregnancy, as if it the diagnosis was somehow a qualifier for her womanhood, and labelled it ridiculous, as if “women are somehow incomplete, unsuccessful, or unhappy if they’re not married with children.”

“In this last boring news cycle about my personal life there have been mass shootings, wildfires, major decisions by the Supreme Court, an upcoming election, and any number of more newsworthy issues that “journalists” could dedicate their resources towards.”

She went on to speak about the “painful awkwardness” that comes from having to tell friends, family and random strangers that she is not pregnant, that those photos the tabloids are showing are actually “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.”

While she is sad to accept that tabloids, and the perpetuation of celebrity culture will no doubt continue to thrive, she hopes that what changes, is the perception and public reaction to these “toxic messages”.

“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.”

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