Sunday, June 25, 2006

More Britney Smears – Pretty in Stink

In my last post, I defended Britney Spears. Maybe I didn’t defend her so much as express my ambivalent feelings about her. My argument was that the whole Britney is a bad mother thing has more to do with America’s schizophrenia about gender than her actual ability to parent. But today, I’m more in a smear Britney mood.

Take a look at these pictures of Britney:



These pictures haven’t garnered nearly as much controversy as the picture of Britney nearly dropping her baby or the one where she’s driving with the baby in her lap. But I think these pictures are more upsetting. Why? It’s not because they're tacky like a 1985 glamour shot. My problem is that she clearly has make-up on. I’m guessing she’s wearing perfume as well. Those cosmetics and fragrances contain unregulated petrochemicals that mimic estrogen and testosterone, hormones that affect the development of the body in a myriad of ways we don’t fully understand yet. Here is a diagram of dibutyl phthalate, a chemical commonly found in cosmetics, and a diagram of estrogen.



Are you having trouble figuring out which is one is which? Your body has a hard time too. Sadly, women of child-bearing age are expected to wear cosmetics and fragrances. Those products are marketed aggressively to the one demographic that has the most reason to avoid them. Endocrine disruption could harm our children’s mental, sexual, and general development. Decreased penis size, hypospadia, breast cancer…scientists who do not have a vested interest in the commercial success of the cosmetic and fragrance industry are gathering more and more evidence on very disturbing effects of endocrine disruptors.

Here’s another picture that ought to be as controversial as the one where Britney is driving with her baby in her lap. In this one Britney is marketing her own brand of petro-stink right around the time of her first pregnancy.



An excellent resource on this issue is the Not Too Pretty website. You can download their report at this link.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your an idiot there is no such evidence to support that, when I get pregnant I'll wear makeup and perfume and post a picture to make you happy, damn tree hugger!!!!!!!

GreenDaddy said...

Actually, there is an abundance of evidence to support the claims I made. The post links to a detailed report on the "Not Too Pretty" website that presents this evidence. I feel bad for your future child that rather than consider this evidence you would choose to expose it to toxins in order to spite me.

I also think “tree hugger” is a positive term. It originally comes from the protests of Indian peasants who stopped the clear cutting of forests near their villages by hugging trees. They were motivated because they collected fuel, logged, and otherwise drew sustenance from those forests. As a result, India passed a law that regulates logging and balances community needs, commercial interests, and environmental concerns.