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.

@TheHoneyBadger

Why do people keep unquestioningly parroting the word choice? Do we really think choices happen in a vacuum?

The libfem kool aid has had a hell of an effect on critical thinking.

Absolutely, Honey and frustrating to see on a female-dominated forum.

The suggestion that the attractive 19 year old girl in the music industry pandering to the male gaze by posing in her underwear is the powerful one calling the shots is really rather mad.

If it is genuinely a woman’s free choice then I fully support wearing whatever you want. I don’t know anything about the billy eilish situation so can’t comment really.

I’m confused about something though. How is a woman empowered by taking off her clothes? What power does she gain? I’m not trying to be funny but I’m struggling to understand this argument.

@Pyewackect

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.

By posing half naked in her underwear ?

That doesn't half sound like 'She was asking for it...'

Let's face it, the majority of pearl clutchers are just pissed off that she isn't fat. Same with Adele.

No one's denigrating her as a person. It's the commercial decision-making that went in to this photo shoot that we are disputing and that seems off. If she wasn't a talented , highly creative individual no one would care. That's why it's disappointing. And fair enough if she really is doing it for "female empowerment" but I think it's naieve to expect the wider world to understand the subtleties of that message. And again, why is "female empowerment" so often synonymous with "dress up and be photographed in underwear"?

Its really true,most women are hated on by other women.This thread proves that.

Why is it hating on other women to comment on what she has chosen to wear on her vogue cover? Whether you agree with the comments I don't think anyone has been disrespectful to her- I think it's clear a lot of people here have a lot of respect for BE and her music, how talented she is, and felt it was refreshing to see someone not dressed like little mix with all the faux 'empowerment' bullshit. So it's obviously going to provoke comments when she not only changes her image but wears underwear in order to do so. Why is it always underwear? Why not a different style of actual outerwear?

@Oblomov21

Disagree with the fact she isn't a 'role model'. She is. To many young girls, just like little minx, Ariana Grande etc. With fame comes the responsibility. They chose that life, and with it comes responsibilities.

I disagree and you are very much part the problem there. It's not anyone's job to wrap their lives around being a higher being for others to model themselves on. Her job is to make music. She has no responsibilities to be anything more than a normal person beyond that.

I agree that young girls and women are too sexualised in the industry. But it is not any one of their jobs to individually martyr themselves to setting an example.

Well when Lewis Capaldi starts dating someone from love island and does interviews shirtless with a 6 pack, I'll start a thread on here.
That do you?

Lewis capaldi danced (at least) half naked in a video...
I don't understand 6pack reference in here, bit fine

Yes, it's so empowering to be dressed up in clothes that you can barely move around or breathe in. True liberation that.

You never see a bloke dressed in what looks like sausage wrapping and talking about how 'empowered' it makes him feel.

It's bullshit.

Let's face it, the majority of pearl clutchers are just pissed off that she isn't fat. Same with Adele.

And that's not a misogynistic, ageist comment either I suppose? You'll be talking about "Karens" next.

I don't think this change automatically means she's lost her integrity. Sure, maybe there was outside pressure or she was otherwise convinced to do this, happens to all of us in big and small ways and she has even more people to pile the pressure on, but I don't get making it about her morals - which are still in the making - rather than the industry that puts the pressure on and pushes those questions for her to answer that are then reprinted and adapted to suit the media outlet.

Why focus on a teenager not living up to your particular set of middle age standards rather than the middle age people who are maintaining the systems that do this? It doesn't seem to be great role modeling to me to be tearing apart teenagers for not being original enough when none of what's said on the topic is that original.

At her age, I made the radical shift of wearing mainly tank tops and short typical for the time teen clothes regularly to wearing long skirts, long sleeve shirts, and headcoverings. Oh, I definitely got some comments on how I was being influenced to do that -- some were right, some were way off. The issue isn't teenagers changing aren't sticking to their guns, few do without social support and we all change, it's that the systems around teenagers - largely being maintained by middle age people - has way bigger, shinier guns that they're more than happy to make it seem like a great idea to pick up. It may have been different guns, but the vast majority of people do this.

@MrsIsobelCrawley

It must be great to be a young male singer songwriter.

No threads complaining about what they wear.

This. ^

As if women don't have enough shit to deal with throughout their entire life; much of it from men (and their actions.)

The last thing we need is derogatory and vitriolic shit from other woman as well FFS.

Lewis Capaldi's whole USP is that he is ugly and awkward and would never get girls if he wasn't good at singing and songwriting. See also Ed Sheeran. In fact, it's a bit of a pattern amongst male singers isn't it so it's not even a USP, it's just the way it is for male singers.

@MrsIsobelCrawley

It must be great to be a young male singer songwriter.

No threads complaining about what they wear.

It must indeed be great. You can look like Ed Sheeran with no pressure to sexualise yourself and launch a raunchy 'new' look.

Which is exactly the same look as the other young female stars before you.

Other WOMEN (not woman!) Get an edit button PLEASE mumsnet!

@Physalis

We can’t we just let a teenager explore their style?

Because she's not just an ordinary teenager who is just wandering up to her wardrobe thinking "mmm, what shall I wear today?". She's famous with an agent and a PR firm and a stylist who will have discussed and considered this photo shoot. Many options will presumably have been considered with a view to what message she will be sending out to her fans and the public in general. It will have been a commercial decision. We wouldn't even be having this discussion if she was the teenager next door.

She has successfully pushed back at being sexualised when she was younger. You don’t usually go backwards as you get older and let others dictate your fashion choices. She’s likely to become more self-assured in her own choices and what she wants. If she can tell them to do one at 15 she can definitely tell them to do one at 19. Therefore, if she didn’t want to dress that way, it’s safe to assume she wouldn’t.

We would care if the teenager next door did this. She wouldn’t have as many people questioning her choices but if she started wearing tighter clothes, she’d still be questioned why she was dressing that way. Maybe she was asking for trouble. The usual lines we use for blaming women.

Why focus on a teenager not living up to your particular set of middle age standards

But ageism is ok?

It's not ageism that's the problem here, it's sexism.

Anyway theres worse things she could be doing.Like taking drugs,abusing alcohol.

I cant get het up because she decided to wear a corset.

It didnt do Madonnas career any harm.

[quote littlepattilou]@Moondust001

My first thought was "Who?" - still don't know the answer to that, or care to find out.

My second was "Who cares about their opinion on anything? "

'WHO? Never heard of her...'

There's ALWAYS one.

Unless you have been living in a cave for the past 5 years, there's no way you haven't heard of Billie Eilish.[/quote]
I'd never heard of her either, until today. But then I'm a grown-up who doesn't listen to music aimed at teenagers. I don't waste my time reading trite meaningless sleb gossip either. Perhaps that's why her presence has passed me by. Yawn.

She’s an adult, dressing the way she is because it most probably makes her happy. I see no issue in it?

She didn’t ask anyone to like it.

I think it is incredibly sad to see children wearing clothes that are too mature for them, but she’s not a child.

She seems very in control of her career, and her style. It’s only natural that her style would change. We really need to try and support other women, not trash them.

Of course she can wear what she wants.
Equally I can feel tired that yet another 'different' female in the public arena has ended up following the same well-worn male-mogul-pleasing path as the women who came before.
iirc there was an article in the music press when BE was first getting a lot of publicity and being pushed as 'alternative' and 'unique' etc. The article said her image was manufactured and she'd be going down the same path as all the rest of the female teen 'pop/music' stars ... and so it came to pass. I had thought they might let the 'alternative' image play out a bit longer but I guess once you get a Bond theme, they really like to tie you into the traditional corset-wearing ingenue. Not much has changed since the 1950s.
I do feel sorry for the posters who lived in communities and families where 30-yr-olds dating teen school pupils was normalised and accepted. I'm not saying there weren't girls who fell into those type of abusive relationships but they were always secret, weren't condoned and when family or friends found it, there was usually a chat about how inappropriate it was.

@Physalis

Why focus on a teenager not living up to your particular set of middle age standards

But ageism is ok?

It's not ageism that's the problem here, it's sexism.

She's the one who called herself middle age, it's her standards. I'm making the contrast that she's putting her standards on a teenager and acting like it's some awful thing for teenagers to not be living up to those ideals.

Both ageism and sexism are ways the systems pressures and influences people, the way it interacts with young women creates something potent but we can't pretend her age has nothing to do this.

@Physalis

Let's face it, the majority of pearl clutchers are just pissed off that she isn't fat. Same with Adele.

And that's not a misogynistic, ageist comment either I suppose? You'll be talking about "Karens" next.

Misogynist? Look closer to home. Ageist? How? I'm middle aged myself. Karens? Why? Nobody needs to speak to the manager.

Billie Eilish looks fantastic and some people do not like it. That's all this boils down to.

@Physalis

Let's face it, the majority of pearl clutchers are just pissed off that she isn't fat. Same with Adele.

And that's not a misogynistic, ageist comment either I suppose? You'll be talking about "Karens" next.

Well there were genuinely women claiming Adele betrayed obese women by losing weight. So that comment might ebquite spot on.

She can't win either way it seems

Women generally can't. Least of all on women's forums, it seems.

But it was her idea? Are we reading the same article?

Our cover star this month wanted nothing short of a transformation – and, as has been the way throughout Billie’s extraordinary career, it’s her depth, intelligence, humour and self-awareness that underpin her choices. So she came to Vogue with an idea. What if, she wondered, she wanted to show more of her body for the first time in a fashion story? What if she wanted to play with corsetry and revel in the aesthetic of the mid-20th century pin-ups she’s always loved? It was time, she said, for something new. Having learnt her fashion fantasy, we went to work...