Olivia Rodrigo: "You Shouldn't Be Responsible for Some Guy Sexualizing You"

Olivia Rodrigo responded to criticism about her on-stage outfits by calling the online discourse disturbing. She said she has worn revealing outfits such as a sparkly bra and shorts that felt fun, cool, and appropriate, while fully covered babydoll-style dresses were labeled inappropriate. She connected the differing reactions to cultural normalization of pedophilia and to rhetoric taught to girls that suggests they are at fault when men sexualize them. She argued that dressing should be about feeling cool and comfortable, including drawing inspiration from artists she admires. She concluded that younger women and girls should not be fed the idea that they are responsible for someone else’s sexualization.

""What's really, like, disturbing is I feel like I have worn outfits that are revealing on stage," Rodrigo noted. "I've been on stage in a sparkly bra, little shorts, which is my right. That's fun. I felt cool and comfortable in that. And that wasn't 'inappropriate,' but me, fully covered up in a dress that people deem to be, like, childlike was 'inappropriate.' And I just it just like shows how we really normalize pedophilia in our culture.""

""And also it's just this rhetoric that we're fed as girls since we''e so little, which is, 'Don't wear that because then a man is going to sexualize your body and it's your fault.' Like it's so weird. And I didn't think I looked sexy in that at all. I was like, 'This is so cool. I feel like I look like Kathleen Hanna or Courtney Love' ... all these people who are my heroes. And I felt cool and comfortable in it.""

""I just think if we start dressing in a way that's like, 'Oh, I don't want some freak to think that I am sexy like a baby,' or some crazy thing like that... I just, I just think it's like losing the plot a little bit.""

""I'm just very protective of like younger women and girls and, I don't ever want them to be fed that rhetoric, I guess. You shouldn't be responsible for some guy sexualizing you in a way that was never your intention.""

Read at Consequence