We all know how it goes: first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage. Or, at least, that’s how it used to go in the bad old days, when women’s options were limited and other paths weren’t open to them.

Nowadays, more women than ever before are choosing not to have children – and, while motherhood is an entirely valid choice for some, it is no longer the goal that defines and shapes everybody’s lives. That doesn’t, however, stop the media from speculating about a woman’s body and reproductive status.

Earlier this week, editors at OK! Australia reported that Miley Cyrus was pregnant. Primarily because, you know, she’s married now and that’s what married women do. The news was promptly shared by the Mail Online, but, as ever, they went one step further by zooming in on photos of Cyrus in a funky oversized dress and claiming she was sporting a “fuller stomach”.

Unwilling to let this lie, Cyrus responded to the claims by directly replying to the Mail’s tweet.

“I’m not ‘Egg-xpecting’ but it’s ‘Egg-cellent’ to hear everyone is so ‘Happy For Us’,” she wrote, pulling out a few direct quotes from the article.

Pointing out that there’s more to a happy relationship than reproduction, Cyrus added: “We’re happy for us too! ‘Egg-cited’ for this next chapter in our lives. Now, can everyone leave me alone and go back to staring at an egg?”

Cyrus was, of course, referring to the fact that a photograph of an egg – posted on 4 January – is the most-liked photo ever posted to Instagram, with more than 42 million likes to date.

However, her fiery tweet looks set to go down in social media history, too: it has already been retweeted 1,900 times and counting.

“END THEM, QUEEN!” wrote one excited fan in response.

“I love you so much for this,” added another.

And still one more tweeted: “Boom! [That’s] Miley ending the Daily S**t.”

Sadly, Cyrus is not the first woman to see her body picked apart by the media. Indeed, it’s a problem so prevalent that, in 2016, Jennifer Aniston penned a powerful essay on how tiresome it is to have to effectively defend yourself for a change in your physical appearance. She called suggestions that she was secretly pregnant “absurd and disturbing”. And she was right: no one should need reminding that a woman’s body is not something to speculate over.

“[These reports give us a] dehumanising view of females, focused solely on one’s physical appearance… Is she pregnant? Is she eating too much? Has she let herself go?” the Friends star stated previously.

“I resent being made to feel ‘less than’ because my body is changing and/or I had a burger for lunch and was photographed from a weird angle and therefore deemed one of two things: ‘pregnant’ or ‘fat.’

“We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies.”

Amen.

Image: Getty