Annie Lennox continues to be a truth-telling goddess, queen and icon. It all started last month when Annie was asked about Beyonce’s performances and whether it’s a good thing that Beyonce self-identifies as a feminist. Annie basically said that Beyonce is “feminist lite” and that her self-identification is “tokenistic.” Annie got some hate from The Hive, but in an interview this week with The Daily Beast, Annie didn’t back down. She clarified her comments a bit, talking about the sexualization of young women in music and how feminism exists on a broad spectrum. Annie has a new interview, this time with NPR (via Billboard) and of course those liberal hippies at NPR (God, I love NPR) asked her about feminism and all of that good stuff. YES!
Annie Lennox, former member of the Eurythmics, has been doing plenty of interviews to promote her new album, Nostalgia. Lately, those conversations have often turned to a different topic: Beyonce. Lennox labeled Bey “feminist lite” in an interview at the end of September. Talking with NPR in a recent interview, Lennox attempted to clarify her stance.
NPR’s Steve Inskeep asked the singer, “What has made you comment on a lot of modern music today that is being put out by women as being over-sexualized?” “Well you’ve said it in the question,” Lennox replied. “The reason why I’ve commented is because I think that this overt sexuality thrust — literally — at particular audiences, when very often performers have a very, very young audience, like 7 years older, I find it disturbing and I think its exploitative. It’s troubling. I’m coming from a perspective of a woman that’s had children.”
The discussion then moved from over-sexualization more generally to focus on Beyonce. “Some people will know that you specifically criticized Beyonce for this the other day,” prompted Inskeep. “Well, I didn’t specifically criticize Beyonce,” noted Lennox. “I was being asked about Beyonce in the context of feminism, and I was thinking at the time about very impactful feminists that have dedicated their lives to the movement of liberating women and supporting women at the grass roots, and I was saying, ‘well that’s one end of the spectrum, and then you have the other end of the spectrum.'”
Inskeep pressed further: “It sounds like you feel that there was a phrase taken and that became the headline, but you were actually trying to deliver a more involved thought?”
“Listen,” said Lennox, “Twerking is not feminism. Thats what I’m referring to. It’s not — it’s not liberating, it’s not empowering. It’s a sexual thing that you’re doing on a stage; it doesn’t empower you. That’s my feeling about it.” Before returning to Nostalgia, Lennox suggested, “Maybe this is a good thing because it creates debate.”
Yes. Word. I hate how people are boiling this down to “Annie hates Beyonce” or “Annie hates Miley Cyrus” or “Annie thinks the young ones aren’t real feminists” or whatever argument some of you will make about race. Annie is very clearly and concisely talking about the spectrum of feminism and feminist acts. She’s very clearly talking about the “disturbing and exploitative” nature of many performers. I don’t know why we can’t take Annie’s words at face value. She was a feminist when it wasn’t “cool”. She’s been talking about women’s issues for decades.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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