Jennifer Aniston’s Baby Comments Are Really Refreshing

Though today may be a day everyone is talking Brad and Angelina, I’m a little obsessed with Jennifer Aniston. I love her in “Friends” reruns, I love her in Aveeno commercials, oh, and I super-love her offscreen when she’s playing the role of herself to perfection.

Aniston recently sat down with Carson Daly on “Today” to talk about an interview she conducted earlier this year with feminist Hall-of-Famer Gloria Steinem. It was one of those perfect, celeb-interview home-runs. It is empowering and it is feminist and it shows that women can live happily without the conventional marriage-kids-happily-ever-after (though that path is great, too, ladies!)

As follows, an excerpt from the transcript of the interview, as collected by US Weekly:

“I don’t have this sort of checklist of things that have to be done, and…if they’re not checked, then I’ve failed some part of my feminism or my being a woman or my worth and my value as a woman because I haven’t birthed a child,” Brad Pitt’s ex-wife continued. “I’ve birthed a lot of things, and I feel like I’ve mothered many things,” she said. “And I don’t feel like it’s fair to put that pressure on people.”

First off, lame moves, US Weekly, did you really think that we, the American public, were going to be cool with you dismissing The Great And Powerful Jen as just “Brad Pitt’s ex-wife.” Go find a good hiding place, tabloid magazine, because America’s coming for you with torches ablazing and pitchforks a-pointing.

But US Weekly’s blundering aside, Aniston comes across like a queen and a half in this interview. Most women during their post-high-school-and-college-graduation childbearing years face that “JUST STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND POP OUT A BABY NOW GODDAMNIT” pressure, and any kind of pressure your average, ordinary woman faces a woman in the spotlight faces, like, a hundred-fold. Jen’s had a bump-watch on her since, like, forever, and I like how awesomely she puts the kabosh on her pressure-mongers. I’m completely into how gracefully she separates the idea of motherhood from the idea of womanhood. Just listen to your old friend Jen, the two are not synonymous. Lastly, I so love how she talks about the role of an artist as being akin to the role of a parent. She’s birthed SO MANY roles and the RACHEL HAIRCUT, so just get off her uterus already!

It’s always nice when a celebrity steps up to the plate and speaks for the group she represents. Jen, just like with Mulan and China, you bring honor to us all.

See more of their conversation here:

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