Chrissie Hynde continued her Stir Sh*t Up tour with a stop at the BBC Woman’s Hour on Monday, where the former Pretenders singer compared modern pop singers with “sex workers” and implied that they are in some way responsible for a culture of sexual assault.
Hynde started off with a very good point (that sexual assault isn’t just an issue for women) but things went pear-shaped pretty quickly.
“I don’t think sexual assault is a gender issue as such, I think it’s very much it’s all around us now. It’s provoked by this pornography culture, it’s provoked by pop stars who call themselves feminists. Maybe they’re feminists on behalf of prostitutes – but they are no feminists on behalf of music, if they are selling their music by bumping and grinding and wearing their underwear in videos. That’s a kind of feminism – but, you know, you’re a sex worker is what you are.”
It got worse.
“I think it’s provocative in a way that has nothing to do with music. I would say those women are responsible for a great deal of damage.”
Policing someone for what they are wearing isn’t very rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s unlikely that Hynde will be moved from her moralizing position. When The Washington Post confronted her about her controversial rape comments, she would not back down and countered that there are worse things going on in the world.
“At the moment, we’re in one of the worst humanitarian crises in our lifetime. You see that picture of a Turkish policeman carrying the body of a 3-year-old boy who got washed up on the shore. These are the heartbreaking images we have and we’re talking about millions of displaced persons and people whose families have been destroyed and we’re talking about comments that I allegedly made about girls in their underwear.”
(Via the Daily Mail)
