Just seen Billie Eilish report on news. What a load of bollocks...

[ssd]

Honestly it must he a total head nip being young these days. 19 yr olds telling us not to body shame then appearing in vogue in a corset. But said 19 yr old being an expert in telling us how to feel, and of course that stupid trendy word 'empowerment ' used as much as possible. Maybe it was the same in my day, but then social media wasnt about to give eedgits a platform to be an expert on everything. Pop stars always got too much attention, but now with sm it must be increased tenfold.
Thank fuck I'm old and middle aged.

@Advic3Pl3as3 well it wasn't rocket science. Many of her fans will feel let down, many will not.

No, just seen the news report. I'm sure she feels she's playing them at her own game. And maybe she is. But i don't know if her fans who identified with her will feel the same.

She is also intelligent and knows sex sells

She's 19 ffs. She had been selling music perfectly well with her existing image.

The industry believes young women must be hypersexualised. She will have been 'advised' repeatedly to hone a new adult image.

@ssd

I just think she looks like she's sold out. She seemed to promote wearing baggy clothes as she didn't want to be defined by her figure. And that must have appealed to a lot of people who felt the same. Then she turns up in vogue in a corset. Its probably meant to be ironic or something, but it just comes across as like everyone else before her. Its like they start with their own ideas then end up like everyone else.

I agree. I thought BE was all about the music and ideas, and so a fantastic role model for teenage girls. Instead she's gone along the usual old 'now I'm an adult I must conform to the usual role assigned to famous women and get my tits out for the lads'.

TBF to Madonna, from the start she wore exactly what she wanted probably to stand out from the crowd. It's this deliberate change of style (see Miley Cirrus as well - God knows why she thought twerking with Robin Thicke was 'empowering') that makes me roll my eyes.

Young women are being told that the most empowering thing a women can do is take her clothes off in public. (See also CardiB)

At the same time women are bombarded by messages to ‘send nudes’ and ‘show us your tits’.

Same message, different language.

19 yr olds telling us not to body shame then appearing in vogue in a corset

Please explain how those things have anything to do with each other.

Body shaming is about ridiculing someone for how they look.

[quote littlepattilou]@ssd

We weren't fair game in my day, older men coming onto young girls were sent packing then, same as now.

What a load of old tosh. GIRLS, as young as 13 or 14, have ALWAYS been targeted by pervy older men. To say it never happened 'back in the day,' is farcical to the extreme![/quote]
I totally agree. If anything in my acquaintance, parents didn’t back an eyelid when 16 yo plus girls went out with much much older men.

I had a thing with a 30 something yo when I was still at school in the 5th year (yr11). He also had a thing with another girl briefly just before. I basically found this out because she and her friends came up to me the following Monday and told me he was her boyfriend and started bullying me thereafter. He must have loved it... I met him down the pub (that I’d been going to since age 15) and a month later or so I found out his gf, whom he lived with was pregnant.

I then briefly having a boyfriend of a more similar age and subsequently didn’t have any form of relationship until I went to university. There I continued to be targeted by much older men, all of whom I later discovered were in relationships. I had no self esteem or parental guidance to know how to navigate any of these situations. I then met dh at 21 and didn’t look back.

@Ecruelworld

I just find it depressing that for females in the music industry there is always a focus on their bodies. Looking strong, looking sexy, looking fierce, pouting, sticking out bums etc etc. Why can the music and the body of the woman performing it ever seem to be separated? Musicians in other genres don’t have this focus on their body bound up with their music. A classical musician can still be someone people will pay to hear even if they are totally average looking. It shouldn’t matter if Billie Eilish has green hair and a baggy top or blonde hair and stockings and suspenders. Yet it does. And it’s shit.

Amen to that

Maybe young talented performers were always screwed over by management or marketing. Very few seem to stick to their guns.

She's 19 with 0 experience of life, why are her quotes on the news as if they're important?

I was a moron when I was 19. I honestly think most people probably are. I’m glad I didn’t have a platform to share my views with the world!

[quote Ponoka7]@ssd
"We weren't fair game in my day, older men coming onto young girls were sent packing then, same as now."

What year was that? I was a teenager when Bill Wyman went out with 15/4 year old Mandy Smith. A French politician was dating a 13 year old. Then we had Chris Evans, in his 30's chasing 16 year old Billie Piper. Did you live in a bubble which was ahead of its time around exploitation/ coercion/Domestic abuse etc? Because that's the only explanation. You might have been lucky to have good men around you, but that doesn't mirror most women's experience. It was fine for school girls to get sexually harassed on the way home. No one reacted.[/quote]
Same. Mandy Smith was 13 . THIRTEEN!! When Bill Wyman met her as said she was “a woman at 13”. He was having sex with her when she was 14 and he was almost 50.

We weren't fair game in my day, older men coming onto young girls were sent packing then, same as now.

It wasn't my personal experience either but it absolutely was a thing that young girls were "fair game". That said, two men did try to drag me into a shop in Tunisia when I was 12 but that was my only personal experience of it. Just be cause it didn't happen to you/on your circle doesn't mean it didn't happen. Historic sex abuse scandals should show that!

I know, at 19 I'd lived abroad and thought i had it all sussed.

Thank god sm wasnt around then to make gods of us.

We weren't fair game in my day, older men coming onto young girls were sent packing then, same as now.

I’m 31. A girl at my school had a boyfriend who was in his thirties. She actually went on to have kids with him after school. He would pick her up from school. At 15, I had a 39 year old man tell me I was the only thing that had gotten him hard recently. My friend was strung out by a man who was 25 but wouldn’t go out with her as he had a girlfriend who was also our age. He liked to text her and tell her everything he’d do if he didn’t have a girlfriend, not because she was underage. Maybe it was different 40 years ago but if that’s the case, then things definitely went backwards.

Billie Eilish is saying that you shouldn’t be worried to wear something because you don’t fit the typical image. She mentions in one of her Instagram posts that if someone tells you that you are too large for a dress, you should tell them fuck off. She isn’t a size zero and yet she is appearing in tight fitting clothing, clothing that others may say she is too big for her. I’m not saying that by the way but she is anticipating someone saying that.

I can’t get worked up about her image changing. She’s a teenager. Personal style changes a lot during your teenage years. From when I was 13 to 19 my style changed a lot, as I imagine most people’s did. At 13 I still wore very childish clothing. At 15 I went through an emo phase and I wore a big, baggy black hoody and baggy jeans. At 17 I moved into colours and slightly less baggy jeans. I still wore hoodies. At 19 my clothes were slightly tighter. I stopped wearing hoodies and started wearing more fitted jumpers. We can’t we just let a teenager explore their style?

She can wear baggy clothes, she can wear a corset. The whole point it is her choice. It is not anti-feminist to wear something perceived sexual. Not all feminists wear flat shoes, have hairy armpits and wear conservative clothing. A woman shouldn't be shamed for either of these things, be it corsets or baggy clothes

Well of course i knew it happened then as it does now @SoupDragon, why would you think i didnt??
I was responding to a poster saying a lot of her pals went out with 30 yr olds as teenagers, i said none of mine did.

You keep going on about her spouting her views like she's an expert but you haven't even read the article yet maybe read what she said first?

I just think she looks like she's sold out. She seemed to promote wearing baggy clothes as she didn't want to be defined by her figure. And that must have appealed to a lot of people who felt the same. Then she turns up in vogue in a corset. Its probably meant to be ironic or something, but it just comes across as like everyone else before her. Its like they start with their own ideas then end up like everyone else.

Its called growing up,you seriously cant expect her to wear the same clothes when she was 13 now.

Do you?
She looks great in the corset pictures. But she would have kept her integrity with her sweatshirt kept on.

So you can only have integrity if she has baggy clothes.BS.

I'm laughing at the sex sells comments. She's one of the biggest artists in the world and she's done it in baggy clothes.

For her, this probably is empowerment. She wants to have some licence in the way her body is seen and judged. Paps have always been after shots of her body, she's probably had enormous pressure from the music industry to be more sexual. The fact that she doesn't play to that doesn't mean she can't enjoy both dressing in baggy clothing and dressing up in Vogue.

Her message isn't wear baggy clothes. It's that the pervy and mysogninstic media who prey on women's bodies needs to fuck off.

@TatianaBis

She is also intelligent and knows sex sells

She's 19 ffs. She had been selling music perfectly well with her existing image.

The industry believes young women must be hypersexualised. She will have been 'advised' repeatedly to hone a new adult image.

Why the FFS and selective quoting? I am mostly agreeing you.

I think she probably is being manipulated but she probably also knows what she wants, which may be to appeal to a wider market.

There is a price for everything unfortunately.

She wore baggy clothes as she didn't want judged on her body. Then she goes on vogue wearing a corset with a great body. So therefore alienates the people that aligned with her in the first place. But did a piece to explain the backlash so thats ok.

@ssd

No, just seen the news report. I'm sure she feels she's playing them at her own game. And maybe she is. But i don't know if her fans who identified with her will feel the same.

Instead of reading nasty news bites from The Daily Mail, maybe you should read the actual interview.

It might give you actual perspective and insight.

Came across this the other day. Men certainly aren't required to undress to be famous. If you want to be a pop star, undress when you're of age. Pandering to the male gaze has been rebadged and sold to women as empowerment.

"When nudity becomes a requirement for attention, when sex appeal becomes a prerequisite for airtime, and when one’s physical assets determine whether or not her achievements will be recognized, sexual liberation becomes sexual subjugation."