Lily Allen: ‘I don’t think men are the enemy, I think women are the enemy’

Lily Allen is everywhere these days, promoting her new album and her questionable music video. Every red carpet, every opening of an envelope in the UK has involved Lily Allen trying to be the center of attention. Every UK magazine has run interviews with her, often cover stories. My take? Although I have sympathy for her reproductive issues, I think Lily is still the same trashy mess she’s always been. When she first came on the scene, she was a drunk drama queen always looking to start a fight. She’s mellowed a bit since then, but she still talks trash about everyone and everything. She has a new Shortlist interview and surprisingly, it’s not a litany of all of her famous friends and feuds. But she still manages to offend feminists, men, tomboys and on and on. You can read the full piece here, and here are some highlights:

She’s not a girly-girl, obviously: “I’m not an archetypal woman. All my best friends are boys.”
Gender relations: “It’s much the same. But I don’t think men are the enemy, I think women are the enemy. I know that when I’m sitting in a restaurant and a really beautiful woman walks in, who’s skinny, I instinctively think, “Oh she’s really skinny and beautiful and I’m really fat and ugly.” Every man I speak to always says they find that kind of woman gross, and they prefer a bit more meat on their ladies. So it’s more of a competitive thing. It’s weird. It’s just really unhealthy and we’re our own worst enemy. We should stop being so horrible to each other.”
The song “Sheezus” name-checks Katy Perry & Rita Ora: “It just dribbled out! It’s not supposed to be provocative and it’s not attacking anyone, although it does namecheck a few people. It’s about how girls are pitted against each other, unlike men. I know you had it in the Nineties with Blur versus Oasis, but it’s not the same thing. It’s like ‘Who looks the best?’, ‘You’re getting too old to do this, you shouldn’t be doing that’. There seems to be a moral undertone when women are concerned that doesn’t happen with men, and that’s what that song is about. Stop this now [laughs]. Feminism. I hate that word because it shouldn’t even be a thing any more. We’re all equal, everyone is equal so why is there even a conversation about feminism? What’s the man version of feminism? There isn’t even a word for it. There’s no reason for it. Menanism. Male-ism. It doesn’t exist… Fast-forward 100 years: ‘Yes, I do believe men should be treated equally.’”
Social media: “It’s a burden in the sense that there are people that take what I’ve brought as a marketing tool for them. And I don’t think you should use Twitter to sell records. MySpace was great because it had a music player on it, and I was able to change things around the whole time and show people how the album developed. Twitter is saved on my phone – along with Instagram – under ‘waste of time’. I only use it if I’m sat in the car for half an hour just to nose around. But it’s kind of stupid, isn’t it? And fun at the same time. Like crack.”

[From Shortlist]
Her views on feminism and gender relations are a g—damn mess. I’m trying to interpret the whirlwind of contradictory messages. So, there’s no need for feminism anymore because we’ll all equal and she doesn’t know the word “patriarchy” I guess, and since she doesn’t know that word, we don’t have to think about it anymore. Oh, and women are the enemy especially if they’re prettier than her but it’s okay because all of the dudes tell Lily that they would prefer to be around someone like her, so she wins. And everyone is equal. WTF?