“If I wear what is comfortable, I am not a woman. If I shed the layers, I am a slut.”
“Do you know me? Do you really know me?” Billie Eilish asked on the opening night of her Where Do We Go? world tour.
Just 18 years old and the Californian artist has already got five Grammys, two Guinness Worlds Records, and a number one album in 10 countries under her belt.
She’s also got more awareness and perception of the consistent hounding that women in the music industry face than some who have been in the business for decades.
“You have opinions about my opinions, about my music, about my clothes, about my body,” she said during a video segment at this week’s Florida show.
“Some people hate what I wear; some people praise it. Some people use it to shame others; some people use it to shame me.
“But I feel you watching, always. And nothing I do goes unseen.”
In the clip, Eilish questioned why women are still being criticised for wearing fewer clothes, while simultaneously being condemned for wearing more clothes.
She said that she had felt particularly “hated recently,” asking the audience, the media, the entire world, what they would like to see her be.
“So while I feel your stares, your disapproval or your sighs of relief, if I lived by them, I’d never be able to move,” she said.
“Would you like me to be smaller? Weaker? Softer? Taller? Would you like me to be quiet? Do my shoulders provoke you? Does my chest? Am I my stomach? My hips?
“The body I was born with, is it not what you wanted? If I wear what is comfortable, I am not a woman. If I shed the layers, I am a slut. Though you’ve never seen my body, you still judge it and judge me for it. Why?”
The past year or so has seen Eilish command the music sphere; dominating charts, festival lineups, and fashion collaborations.
She’s redefining pop music, but she’s also redefining what it means to be a woman in the music industry – one who unapologetically wears baggy clothes, refusing to allow her body to become part of her act.
Eilish is so committed to this disparity – and committed to her art – that she repeatedly refuses to let people see her body.
Not for clout, not to influence, not to tear down those who choose to present themselves differently – but to disclose herself, to reveal how she wants to be seen, irrespective of what anybody else thinks.
“Is my value based only on your perception?” she asked. “Or is your opinion of me not my responsibility?”
