Dua Lipa shows how to tackle sexism in the music industry

British singer Dua Lipa is surging through the skies with her unparalleled success in the music industry.

However, despite the many feathers she has in her cap, the singer’s journey was not short of bumps on the road.

In a cover story for Attitude, Lipa recounted how she experienced sexism in the industry and how she had to work extra hard to prove herself.

“That’s just being a woman in the industry. A lot of people see it, particularly in pop music, that you’re manufactured or whatever, so you have this underlying pressure or anxiety to constantly prove [yourself] to people, especially when you write your own lyrics,” she said.

“You have to work a little bit harder to be taken seriously. … [I] was not just going to sit there in the room and wait for somebody to write a song for me,” she added.

“You’re on a music video and the director goes, ‘I definitely think you need to wear a skirt’—because someone wants to see, you know, ‘UK’s pop star in a cute outfit,'” she said.

“I’m like, ‘Well, I’m going to wear trousers because it’s [expletive] freezing.’ I know how to stand my ground and hold it down.”

“We’re so used to pushing it away and saying something just to turn it off and be, like, this isn’t a big deal. I’ve always been someone to check [a person] straight away,” she continued.

“If someone’s saying something [that I don’t agree with], ‘I’m not going to do that, I’m going to do this,” she added.