Ariana Grande thinks we should stop defining women by their boyfriends

Today’s a big day for Ariana Grande as she releases her third studio album, Dangerous Woman, to the general public after months of promotion. It’s hard to believe that the 22-year-old has only been on the pop music scene for three years (feels a lot longer, right?), but a lot can happen in three years, including plenty of good ‘ol fashioned sexism.

This week, Grande graces the cover of Billboard and the pop star is using the platform to speak out against the way female entertainers are treated, especially by the media. false

“I’ll never be able to swallow the fact that people feel the need to attach a successful woman to a man when they say her name,” Grande told the magazine. “I saw a headline…they called someone another someone’s ex, and that pissed me off. This person has had so many great records in the last year, and she hasn’t been dating him forever. Call her by her name!”

Billboard surmises that Grande is talking about Selena Gomez, who even now, can’t seem to escape the shadow of her ex-boyfriend, Justin Bieber. It’s a good point: Everyone, including celebrities, exist and function outside their relationships. To define them by who they’re dating does a disservice to every other aspect of their lives.

In general, Ariana Grande has no time for your problematic sexism.

“If you’re going to rave about how sexy a male artist looks with his shirt off, and a woman decides to get in her panties or show her boobies for a photo shoot, she needs to be treated with the same awe and admiration,” Grande said. 

Preach Ariana. And read the whole Billboard story for more pearls of Ariana Grande wisdom.