The Woman in Me

In The Woman in Me, Britney Spears describes her long journey of reclaiming her womanhood and autonomy after losing all personal and financial freedom during her 13-year conservatorship. The journey she describes starts in early adolescence when she first gains fame and notoriety. Spears describes her desire to create music that is fun and that reflects her own sense of style. Somewhat absent from the memoir a more rigorous interrogation of the way in which the adults managing Spears’s early career sexualized her image and performances during this time. She says that in the music video for “...Baby One More Time,” it was her idea to dress in a school uniform to “make it seem more exciting when we started dancing outside in our casual clothes” (44-45). She either does not realize or chooses not to mention that although she presents her ideas as autonomous and empowered, the way she was filmed, marketed and exploited during her adolescence reflected a socially systemic misogyny.

Even before her conservatorship, Spears describes feeling infantilized by her family members—a pattern particularly noticeable during the more difficult times in her life when she returns to Kentwood, Louisiana.