Joyce Fegan: Why Britney Spears' story is relevant to all women

The documentary is ostensibly about a pop star in turmoil — but it goes to the heart of inequality, and the punishment meted out to women who dare take control of their own lives

Britney Spears was only a teenager when she became 'a role model for young girls and desirable to boys and men. We put that on her. All she was doing was singing and dancing'.  Picture: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

At the heart of the new Britney Spears documentary is a woman's agency, a woman's right to be in control of her own resources, a woman's right to how she shows up in the world — basically, a woman's right to exist, on her own terms.

Framing Britney Spears, a documentary by The New York Times, is, of course, about the gilded cage in which the musician now exists thanks to her father's control and dominance over all of her affairs — financial, medical, and physical — but it's also the story of how we treat women in society.