St. Vincent has always confronted any sexism she’s faced.
The 38-year-old singer insisted she hasn’t always felt "a lot of hostility" because she’s a woman, but if she faced any discrimination, she preferred to "say something snide" and leave the person in question feeling ashamed of their actions.
She said: "I didn’t walk around feeling a lot of hostility coming up in the industry. I didn’t have an antenna that was tuned to that station. I wasn’t in every room – I’m sure there were plenty of objectionable things that were done – but if I ever encountered sexism to my face, I would kind of make it their problem.
"I mean my mother’s motto for us was, ‘We girls can do anything’. To the tune of the Barbie song, by the way. So when I encountered it, it either confused me or I would make it their problem. I would say something snide, leave them holding the bag of their own shame. 'No, don’t put this on me, that’s for you.'"
But the ‘New York’ singer doesn’t want her own confrontational attitude to make it seem like she’s “victim-blaming” fellow artists who have been subjected to such experiences and unwanted advances.
She added: "I mean, this is such a hairy world to get into. I probably shouldn’t have said anything. Well, just about sexism. I’ll get accused of victim-blaming and that’s not it at all. I’m just ... yeah."
The ‘Down’ singer – whose real name is Annie Clark – is concerned the backlash against so-called cancel culture has now shut down the chance of debates around “action and consequence”.
She mused to the Independent: "We are in an interesting time of trying to figure out the tantamount consequence for action. And if it can’t be legislated in a court of law, people are going, ‘What is it this person deserves for this transgression?’ And we haven’t figured out any clean lines for that yet. It’s a wild time. It’s the wild, wild west.
"Unfortunately the right co-opted the term ‘cancel culture’ and used it in ways that were intentionally misleading. And so now, if you want to have a thoughtful conversation about action and consequence, you can sound like a pundit on the right decrying cancel culture. Unfortunately, the right is very good at packaging things and serving neat lines of outrage. But we have to be careful of lack of nuance, everywhere. That’s dangerous."
