Sky Ferreira opens up about sexism in the music industry
During recent interview, Sky Ferreira discussed her experiences with sexism in the music industry, opening up about labels’ attempts to control her image throughout her career.
Speaking to pop icon Nancy Sinatra for Interview, Ferreira, who broke into the music industry when she was just 18 years old, said that she felt “trapped” as a young artist.
Explaining why the music industry was such a damaging place for a person of her age, Ferreira said: “Everyone’s trying to mould you. They have an idea of what you should be. People get greedy. When I was younger, I got cornered in situations where it was like, ‘You have to do this,’ and I didn’t know better. It was just different back then.”
The internet helped Sky bypass the industry to some extent, although she notes that “it wasn’t this thing that people had figured out.” She used online platforms to her advantage: “That really helped me get my stuff out. But I’ve been shelved so many times. You know, I first came out when I was 15 and it wasn’t a fair representation of me. And then, I wasn’t even that much older, but I started meeting people to collaborate with, and it started falling into place.”
Sinatra also began her career at an early age and explained that she too had felt “pigeonholed early on into this bubble gum image, and I had to fight my way out”. She went on to ask why Ferreira’s long-anticipated album Masochism, which has been pushed back several times since it was announced in 2015, has taken so long to come out. According to Ferreira, working with a major label has been like playing “musical chairs,” hence the slow progress. “One person might run the label, then another – they just switch seats,” she said. “I wanted to try to have a better relationship with them originally. I wasn’t going to compromise, but I was willing to be a little more open, because I didn’t want to have a bad relationship with them. I wanted them to do stuff with me and give me a fair chance.”
It would seem that the struggle to release this upcoming album has reminded Ferreira of how hard it is working with a major label as a woman. “You’re set up in situations to seem difficult, but also, what does that even mean? Just that you’re not willing to be completely controlled,” she said. It’s funny how these people think. It’s as if you’re ungrateful, as if you’re not working for it. They’re like, ‘Don’t you know how lucky you are? There’s another one of you in line.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, well go do it with them then.’
Ferreira concluded: “You could put the person with all the same people I’ve worked with, and you could dress them the same, but at the end of the day, I’m not manufactured, so it’s never going to be the same result. It’s a respect thing. A lot of it is sexist, but I also think it’s because I started when I was 14, so they feel like they can manipulate me, or treat me like a 14-year-old or something. I’m 30 years old now and it’s the same thing.
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