As the online public continues to throw a temper tantrum over Olivia Rodrigo‘s choice to don a baby doll dress while promoting her third LP, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So In Love, the singer-songwriter weighed in on the controversy.
After wearing a pink flouncy dress for the album’s cover, a similar blue one for the “Drop Dead” music video, and rocking out at Barcelona’s Teatro Greco for Spotify’s Billions Club Live while wearing a floral babydoll dress with matching bloomers, the getups triggered a storm of criticism as many internet commenters lodged accusations that the 23-year-old pop sensation was sexualizing herself and and promoting “pedo core.”
On Wednesday, Rodrigo addressed the controversy during an appearance on The New York Times’ Popcast, reminding everyone that “you shouldn’t be responsible for some guy sexualizing you in a way that was never your intention.”
“What’s really disturbing is I feel like I have worn outfits that are revealing on stage,” Rodrigo said. “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 childlike was ‘inappropriate.’ And it just shows how we really normalize pedophilia in our culture.”
She also highlighted the dangerous dialogue around women’s attire and sexual violence. “It’s just this rhetoric that we’re fed as girls since we’re so little, which is, ‘Don’t wear that because then a man is going to sexualize your body and it’s your fault,’” Rodrigo said. “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.”
Rodrigo has previously said that she’s inspired by the punk lineage of artists such as Kat Bjelland and Love, who juxtaposed baby doll dresses with their music and unruly performances to reject and challenge the expectations of women as docile objects in the patriarchy.
When speaking on Popcast, she said, “I just think if we start dressing in a way that’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t want some fucking freak to think that I am sexy like a baby,’ or some crazy thing like that… I just think it’s like losing the plot a little bit.”
Rodrigo added, “I’m just very protective of younger women and girls, and I just don’t ever want them to be fed that rhetoric.”
