InThe Woman in Me, Britney Spears asserts the very fact of her existence.
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Britney Spears suffered so many forms of injustice when she was under legal conservatorship.
She had to tour even when she didnt want to.
She had to perform nightly in Vegas and wasnt allowed to change any of the choreography.
After more than a decade of this, she was institutionalized against her will.
This exclusion was especially galling given the history.
We became happier, more alive and adventurous.
Of course, another way of looking at Britney (there are so many more than 13!)
is that her childhood couldnt be repeated because it had never ended in the first place.
Did Britney grow up too fast, or was she never allowed to grow up at all?
struggles to be born, is always being born, was always already being born.
As the facts of the conservatorship became widely known, Britneys symbolic meaning in the culture changed.
But the Britney inThe Woman in Medoes not write about herself in these terms.
She is especially attuned to humiliations, which feel fresh and raw.
A teenager dueling with a hostile press.
A lovesick 20-something dragged and shamed by a world-historically shitty ex-boyfriend.
A mother deprived of her children, in a state of mind best captured by a Greek tragedian.
The Britney ofThe Woman in Meknows she was used, but she refuses to be a victim.
Yes, the paparazzi targeted her, but she was, after all, having a hard time.
(She doesnt blame the paparazzi forcreatingthe hard time, only for documenting and exacerbating it.)
If she is a lamb, she walks to the slaughter with her eyes wide open.
Britney recorded her self-titled debut album when she was 15 years old.
Singing by herself was all that she had ever wanted to do.
It was how she avoided going home, where her mother was always yelling at her father.
It allowed her to communicate purely.
Not thatescapewas exactly what Britney was after.
She didnt want to be someone else.
But it is not inconsistent or incoherent.
Britneys central ambition remains constant: to express herself without thinking.
Britney wants to move her body.
She wants to feel sexy and likes looking cute.
She doesnt have an idea about the world that shes trying to get across.
Her drive for self-expression is wrapped up in a need to assert the fact of her existence.
Thats why she turned to social media.
And on Instagram, I wanted to show that I existed.
She felt like a ghost child.
In one startlingly vivid passage, Britney reveals that she got pregnant while they were dating.
Britney didnt want to push him into something he didnt want.
Our relationship was too important to me.
Soshe agreed to have an abortionand to do it at their home in Orlando to avoid publicity.
Soon I started having excruciating cramps.
I wanted some kind of anesthesia.
I wanted to go to the doctor.
I was so scared.
I lay there wondering if I was going to die.
The pain, Britney writes, was unbelievable.
She was on her knees, holding the toilet.
The other most memorable passages in the book have to do with motherhood.
Britney had Sean Preston and Jayden James a year apart.
As a young mother, she suffered postpartum depression and anxiety but was also deeply bonded to her sons.
Thats the closest Ive ever felt to God.
Federline waged a vicious custody battle.
I was simply out of my mind with grief, she writes.
Id been the good girl for years.
And I was tired of it.
She knows that the audience likes to see her long hair move onstage for her to thrashit.
If your hairs moving, they can believe youre having a good time.
Thats when I wanted to scream at her.Britney!
That woman is toxic!
(There always has been, but shes referring hereto the past two years.)
I know my fans care.I am free now.Im just being myself and trying to heal.
I finally get to do what I want, when I want.
And I dont take a minute of it for granted.
What is freedom to a woman who has been in captivity all her life?
Britney has some ideas.
Freedom means being goofy, silly, and having fun on social media.
Freedom means taking a break from Instagram without people calling 911.
Freedom means being able to make mistakes, and learning from them.
Freedom means I dont have to perform for anyone onstage or offstage.
Freedom means I get to be as beautifully imperfect as everyone else.
Or, as Sartre wrote, We want freedom for freedoms sake and in every particular circumstance.
But thats when I needed family the most !
Youre supposed to be loved unconditionally … not under conditions !
So I will be as strong as I can and do my best !
And Im actually doing pretty damn good !
No one will have a hard time finishingThe Woman in Me.
Still, one misses Instagram Britney.
Memoir Britney is less chaotic but blander shes confiding and sympathetic, but theres something off.
I was truly innocent just clueless … Britney was so fake and yet so real, so empty and yet so expressive of feeling.
She was at once the machines purest expression and a disturbance in the machines normal functioning.
I didnt know how to present myself on any level, she writes.
I was a bad dresser.
If only she had taken her meeting with Mariah Carey more to heart!
Britney knocked on her dressing-room door once, backstage at an awards show.
When Carey opened the door, out poured the most otherworldly light.
You know how we all have ring lights now?
Well, more than 20 years ago, only Mariah Carey knew about ring lights.
I wasnt manipulative, Britney writes inThe Woman in Me.
I was just stupid.
I wouldnt dream of invalidating Britneys experience by arguing otherwise.
But to imagine that you are stupid is to imagine that someone, somewhere is smart.
