Sky Ferreira has addressed her encounters of sexism in the music industry, after an LA Weekly article, entitled “Sky Ferreira’s sex appeal is what pop music needs right now”, was published last week.
Referencing the piece – which described the artist as “more cherubic Sharon Stone, icy but also sweet, like a freshly licked lollipop” and discussed “Madonna’s defiantly atomic boobs – the two knockers that altered the course of human history” – Ferreira explained how this kind of treatment is symptomatic of wider misogyny in the industry.
In a series of tweets on 21 June, the artist said that “95% of articles & interviews about me have had something offensive, false or (sometimes extremely) sexist” in them. “Some have been more passive aggressive or subtle & socially acceptable.”
The singer mentions her relationship with Terry Richardson – which was scrutinised in the wake of allegations surrounding the photographer – stating that she had “never worked with him since” and that she was frequently asked by journalists whether she had been sexually assaulted by him.
She also goes on to talk about the female archetypes of the industry:
If you're not a bitch or then you're fake. If you're not crazy or difficult then you're boring & helpless
— Sky Ferreira (@skyferreira) June 21, 2016
I'm obviously a lot more than my "sex appeal" or my "knockers". I'm not ashamed of either of those things either.
— Sky Ferreira (@skyferreira) June 21, 2016
Ferreira continued: “I’m not a think piece. I’m not a fucking example. I’m glad that this is making people think & conversation is happening & I appreciate people speaking against it and being vocal.”
The editor of the original article has since posted an apology to the artist, in the wake of Ferreira’s tweets and numerous articles which dissected the misogynistic treatment of the musician. “I thought we were on the provocative side of that line. But it’s clear that most of the people who read it feel pretty passionately that we crossed into offensive territory,” Andy Hermann writes.
In an interview with the Guardian in 2014, Ferreira, whose music career began aged 15, discussed the issue of the gender imbalance in the business: “I have this reputation from ‘insiders’ for being difficult, but people only considered me difficult because I wouldn’t just agree with everything they said. Like, 50-year-old men telling me how to be a woman!”
•An earlier version of this story incorrectly named the publication where the article about Sky Ferreira appeared
