Rising femininomenon
Femme power in a post-woke era
In our 2023 Report, CTRL_SHIFT, we predicted the rise of female musicians. When we asked our audience, “Who is influential now?”, they name-checked SZA, Lana Del Ray, Taylor Swift, Caroline Polacheck, Pink Pantheress, Miley Cyrus, beabadoobee, Rina Sawayama, Björk, FKA Twigs, Rosalía and Charli XCX. And 60% of our global audience cited female musicians being most influential to them.
2024 was the year of the pop femininomenon. In an article for Dazed Digital, Alim Kheraj wrote that “the year belonged to women reshaping pop in their own flawed, complicated and beautiful image.” Case in point, pop’s leading ladies: Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Taylor Swift, Addison Rae, Tyla, Billie Eilish, SZA, Ariana Grande, Rosalía, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga.
And, as Kheraj points out, last year’s female focus signalled something of a sea-change in the pop landscape. Back in 2019, the BBC reported a growing gender gap in pop. 91 men or all-male groups were credited on the Official Chart Company's top 100 most popular songs of 2018 in the UK — and just 30 female acts. In the US, a study by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative revealed that between 2013 and 2018, 90.7 per cent of all Grammy Award nominees were men. During the 2018 Grammys, only one woman, Canadian singer and songwriter Alessia Cara, won an award in one of the major categories for Best New Artist. The hashtag #GrammysSoMale begin to trend on X, then known as Twitter.
Six years later, a revolution was underway, fronted by female stars. The Guardian reported that 2023 was the most successful performance for women on the UK singles chart since it began in 1952 according to the British Phonographic Institute (BPI). Last year’s Grammy Awards championed only one male artist, Jon Batiste, who was nominated for album of the year, record of the year and song of the year. Women won awards in all three categories. And as Kheraj reported, the nominations for this year’s 2025 awards has only solidified this supremacy: out of the eight artists up for album of the year, six are women. No men are nominated for best pop vocal album, best pop solo performance, best dance pop recording, or best pop duo/group performance. Meanwhile in the UK, Sabrina Carpenter became the youngest female artist to take the number one and number two spots in the UK Singles Chart simultaneously with “Please Please Please" and "Espresso".
How this plays out in culture
A new generation of cult female icons
As Trump re-enters The White House, issuing in a “post-woke” era, it is a precarious time to exist as a woman. Following the overturning of Roe v Wade under President Trump back in 2022, over a dozen US states have implemented a near-outright ban on abortion or enacted laws that severely restrict access to abortions. We have witnessed the rise of anti-woke influencers such as Andrew Tate propelling extreme misogynistic rhetoric into the mainstream. The BBC reported that violence against women and girls (including sexual violence, domestic abuse, stalking and child sexual abuse) has reached "epidemic" levels in the UK, with a 37% increase in the number of violent crimes against women and girls between 2018 and 2023.
In this context, pop’s new female frontier present an antagonistic new voice in culture, using their platforms to question complex notions of femininity (Charli XCX), promote sexual empowerment (Addison Rae, Sabrina Carpenter) and to depict a new vision of femininity, in all its beauty, and all its ugliness.
"I'm showing the violence that I experience in the world I'm living in."
- Coralie Fargeat
Outside the realm of pop, female voices — and perspectives — are multiplying. Last year, Coralie Fargeat’s gross-out horror extravaganza The Substance battled impossible beauty standards head on, exploring how the entertainment industry mistreats older women. “The film is showing the world as it is,” Fargeat told Dazed. “It’s not creating what I wish the world would be. I’m showing the violence that I experience in the world I’m living in. I’m showing all the misogyny, all the power imbalance, all the twisted reactions we can have by trying to fit into a world that’s not designed for us. These are things people wish didn’t exist anymore – but they’re still there.”
"It's okay to be feral."
- Halina Reijn
Perhaps no film is getting more airtime than Babygirl, the erotic thriller/comedy combining power, light BDSM and girlbossery. In an Dazed Digital interview, Babygirl’s director Halina Reijn, noted a need for more nuanced female representation. “I don’t think it makes sense to tell stories where we only show a cartoon of what a strong, equal and liberated woman looks like. It’s important to show our confusion and be honest with each other. It’s our turn to look at the other layers in ourselves that men have been doing this for as long as Western democracy exists.” Read the feature on Dazed Digital, here.
"Violence begets violence ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
- Ethel Cain
Earlier this month, Florida-raised singer Ethel Cain expressed sympathy for the alleged United Healthcare shooter Luigi Mangione, prompting Fox News hosts to call for a “boycott” of her music. As Dazed Digital reported, Ethel Cain refused to back down, responding through a Tumblr post that “the healthcare system has fucked each and every member of my family in a different way at one point or another, as is the case with pretty much every family in this scorched earth nation.”
Five female muses to watch next
Jennie
South Korean idol Jennie became the third member of record-breaking K-pop girl group BLACKPINK to announce a full-length solo debut this week, revealing a star-studded list of guest features, including Childish Gambino, Doechii, Dominic Fike, Dua Lipa, FKJ and Kali Uchis. Read more on Dazed Digital, here.
Sailorr
Sitting somewhere between hip hop, RnB and musical theatre, in just three singles, has attracted a listenership of almost two million. Meet the Floridian artist via Dazed Digital, here.
Stella Standingbear
Reaching global notoriety with her On the Radar Radio freestyle earlier this month, the Oglala Lakota Nation artist highlights the stark lack of representation for Native Americans in popular media. Read about hip hop’s breakout star on Dazed Digital, here.
Doechii
Doechii gone from describing herself as a “TikTok rapper”, to being described by Kendrick Lamar as the “hardest out”, ending last year having released her critically acclaimed full-length mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal, and scoring three Grammy nominations.
Yara Shahidi
Actor Yara Shahidi was revealed this week as the new star of Gucci’s SS25 campaign, starring alongside George MacKay in a film shot by Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan.
Might be of interest
Watch out for Richard Eyre’s upcoming film The Housekeeper, coming to screens later this year. An evocative fictionalisation of the events which inspired Daphne Du Maurier to write Rebecca, stars Uma Thurman and Phoebe Dynevor in a lesbian age-gap romance.
Dazed
