Jennifer hit headlines on Tuesday (12Jul16) when she penned an op-ed for the Huffington Post, prompted by speculation that she and husband Justin Theroux were expecting a baby after images emerged of the actress with a more rounded stomach than usual.
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And she wants all of us (yes, you reading a Star magazine at the nail salon!) to do our part to change things. Amen. While Cheryl, 33, simply shared a link to the piece and said: Just when I thought I couldnt love her anymore. In the piece, Jen, 47, said she was fed up with people judging other women on their looks, their bodies, their marital status and whether they had children or not. One example is her limited social media presence.
For the record, Aniston is not pregnant.
“I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of “journalism, ‘ the ‘First Amendment” and ‘celebrity news, ‘” she added.
Additionally, Aniston confronts the intense judgment women face should they choose to opt out of the traditional, married-with-children lifestyle. “But I really can’t tell myself that anymore because the reality is the stalking and objectification I’ve experienced first-hand, going on decades now, reflects the warped way we calculate a woman’s worth”. “Little girls everywhere are absorbing our agreement, passive or otherwise”.
“We use celebrity “news” to perpetuate this dehumanizing view of females, focused exclusively on one’s physical appearance, which tabloids turn into a sporting event of speculation”, said Aniston, who posed nude on the cover of GQ magazine in 2009.
One texter to the programme explained how she was astonished by how much of the conversation around her current pregnancy is based on how she looks.
If she is pregnant, Jennifer said she’ll let the public know and it won’t be because she feels incomplete. Is her marriage on the rocks because the camera detects some physical “imperfection’?”
The actress used the essay as an opportunity to challenge the objectification of women and the scrutiny over their personal decisions.
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The actress blames the media for what she describes as a harmful portrayal of women. She’s been regularly plagued with concern-troll questions about whether she would ever find happiness – a woman’s happiness being primarily found in marriage and children, of course. “We get to decide for ourselves what is attractive and when it comes to our bodies”, she wrote. “That decision is ours and ours alone”.
