Until this week, I had no idea who Ella Henderson was. My first knowledge of the X-Factor star's existence came from a disturbing recount of a phone interview with her by Emma Barnett, women’s editor of The Daily Telegraph.
Young pop stars being
excessively controlled by their managers and PR is a story we are all well
versed in, and horribly blasé about. It is but one of those in-your-face issues
that makes X-Factor not just an hour
long session in eye-scratching, but also sends its viewers on a double downward
spiral of introspection and shame, in preparation for their Saturday night
pillow-cry.* In all fairness, my usual alternative of spending 5 hours in the
pub leads to pretty much the same conclusion.
According to the
article, when Henderson was asked if she considered herself a feminist, the
phone interview was interrupted by a PR official, preventing the 17 year old from
answering:
'Suddenly a gruff man’s voice out of
nowhere growled: “She’s not answering that.” Said aggressive man when asked who
the hell he was simply replied: “Her PR”. I then pushed for Rude Bloke’s name
and was told “Russell.”
'I then asked why she couldn’t answer
this question, and he replied “She’s just not. It’s not to do with Safer
Internet Day.”'
The
article continued to interview many other industry professionals about the
incident, in an attempt to make some sense of this confusing and disquieting
situation. To me, it read like a spoof. A surreal, ridiculous tale, it
resembled a left-field Lord Curzon commission, fallen straight out of 1912. It was an interview conducted from a dystopic, Orwellian representation of post-suffrage Britain: ‘Russell’ was a
strange, resolute symbol; the last man left clutching to better time once had, now lost in a violent wave
of votes for women, educational reform and evolving pop-culture. Because the discussion: ‘Is the f-word too dirty for pop?’ frankly, takes the piss. The
consistent questioning of whether feminism is still too ‘dirty’ or ‘divisive’ for
certain industries hit me like a horrible wake-up call to current general
attitudes towards the word ‘feminism’. A true pointy pin in the side of my once
floaty, optimistic progress-balloon.
One of Barnett’s
interviewee’s explained that some acts will be ‘advised against it [identifying as feminist] out of a fear of
pigeon-holing the pop star and putting fans off.’ This is the
same warped logic found in mainstream music companies that dictates that the public
control what music an artist makes. Now this mass, reactionary,
Coldplay-adoring ‘public’ defines the personal views of those in the spotlight,
too? If an artist is banned by their label from making their own opinions and
music public, they should also be banned from using the word ‘role model’ and
‘individual’ while they are with that label.
I didn’t think we had
equality, or that the fight was over. But the battle in my mind was very
different to the one this article confronted me with. I was under the
impression that any anti-feminist feeling in modern, sane humans was
subconscious; a latent distrust that wasn’t really possible to articulate. Like
the bizarre grudge that makes me switch channels every time Nick Robinson appears
on the BBC. To me, 21st century sexism was a thing that came from a cynicism
and complacency started a long time ago, now inexplicably wedged firmly in the
back of the minds of a few. An invisible, toxic cultural meme, where page 3 and
spearmint rhino are ‘tradition’, like wearing hats at weddings, or the right to
bear arms in America. It seeps secretly into everyday life in the form of
‘eesh, got your period?’, ‘slut’, ‘whore’ and ‘aw she thinks I’m being sexist!’
(That one did personally happen to me. It turned a nice evening of mattress
surfing rather ugly. But that’s for another time).
But this, this was
blatant. Questioning whether the society is ready to hear people publicly claim
to be feminist? Seriously? Whether young girls need to hear their idols speak about gender? Whether they should be exposed to something alternative, that shows them they don’t need to
dance like Rihanna, or wear cupcake bras, or get approval from boys to be
normal? That being successful by picking up a pen, or a banner, or a pair of
fucking roller skates is just as fathomable? QUESTIONING whether women should
affiliate themselves with the movement that turned us into the voting, working,
jeans-wearing, slut-walking sex we are today? I really thought we were past that. That’s not sneaky, subconscious
sexism. And it’s just as dangerous, if not more so. It’s evidence that feminism
is losing momentum. The debate’s been sidelined. We’re being pushed backwards.
That people can still
have dubious opinions on the use of the word ‘feminism’, while claiming to be
an advocate of equal rights, is just so stupid. No modern member of western
democracy would openly claim to be anti-feminist without expecting to be thrust
into some serious controversy. And yet you don’t even have to take to rural,
reclusive England, or the recesses of the internet to be met with a barrage of people
flippantly detaching themselves from the movement for equal rights, because
(and again I’m quoting from real experience here) ‘I like shaving my legs’, ‘If
I want to hold a door for a girl I will’, and, my personal favourite, ‘I don’t want to be stereotyped.’ (Yeah,
feminism really created a problem
of stereotyping women). You don’t have to go out of your way to hear this.
You just have to use the f-word.
It feels so old hat,
and so tired, to still be defining feminism for people; to still be fighting
against a negative image that never truly existed. ‘I’m not a feminist but …’
is the most infuriating sentence starter in the English language. Wouldn’t it be
just FANTASTIC if we could get to a point in society where saying ‘I don’t
consider myself a feminist’ created the same outcry and discomfort as saying
the opposite once did?
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| I didn't have a lot on my plate today |
*See an interesting and disturbing interview Louis Walsh did for
January’s Q [I can't find it online so I can't link you unfortunately, but if you happen across a copy.] Barnett also
quoted Crystal Castles’ vocalist Alice Glass on role models in pop. ‘She thinks a lot of female popstars don’t sell a good image of
themselves to children as women. She cites Katy Perry (who recently refused to
say she was a feminist) as an example of a pop star claiming to be all liberated
– and yet dresses up in cupcake bras - and accuses her and others of
sexualising children with their provocative clothes and actions on stage.’
It is important to think of the image we are selling to young
children in mainstream music. Pop’s wariness of feminism is a probably just
another step in the wrong direction.
