The Fucking F-Word

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, 21^st 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?

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.