While taking a look through the entertainment industry’s history book, countless iconic individuals flood the pages. Whether that be actors, singers, dancers, or more that go beyond just a category, there is something that strongly distinguishes them from each other: The treatment that each of them received. This unfair treatment may have started to become more noticed with Marilyn Monroe, when Judy Garland played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, or when Shelley Duvall was in filming of The Shining. However, the common theme still remains in modern-day icons, one of these icons once being “America’s Sweetheart,” Britney Spears. She shines light on her experience in her memoir The Woman in Me. 

As Britney Spears grew to fame as a young woman in the pop music industry, all eyes were on her and her every move. That included, but was not limited to, if she was lip-syncing, if she hit the right step in the choreography, and what she was doing in her free time. With her multi-platinum singles, “Toxic”, “…Baby One More Time”, and “Oops!..I Did It Again,” as well as her American look that attracted all sorts of fans, the appeal to control her and maintain this image was “crucial” in some eyes. 

Maturing from a young girl to an adult in an emotionally abusive household, Spears grew up with an alcoholic and controlling man as her father. This same man, Jamie Spears, is the one who controlled her against her will throughout her entire career. The liberty of her music, style, and entire life were stripped from her all with just a contract, but what Britney strives to reveal in this tell-all book is that her father isn’t the only male responsible for her “mental breakdowns” in her life. 

Seemingly so, there are many men that fall under the category of toxic masculinity in Spears’s life: Ed McMahon took advantage of her at a young age, Justin Timberlake was a toxic first love, and Kevin Ferline was a failed marriage and father of her children. Each of these men added onto the struggles Britney was already experiencing in her pop singer lifestyle. In The Woman In Me, it is the hard struggles and truth that set her free. Discussing serious topics like postpartum depression, sickening custody battles, mental health and abortion are what brings the audience feeling they can relate to and care for Spears’s story. 

Under the tyrannical control of her father and family around her, the shackles of judgment from society are what held her down. Spears’s intention in writing this book is to share her truth, her battles, and the challenges she faced that, in the end, made her the woman she is. 

As paparazzi continue to profit off her lowest moments in her life and interviewers attempt to pull information out of her, Britney Spears remains true to herself and what she knows to be the truth. Her goal is to let others know the same, and after holding the title of highest selling celebrity memoir in history in just under one day, it is clear her goal has been achieved.