Shania Twain has revealed that she doesn’t see herself as a feminist despite being known for creating music that empowers women around the world.
In a recent interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, the Man! I Feel Like a Woman singer opened up about why she doesn’t consider herself a feminist and views herself more as “an independent thinker.”
“I don’t see myself as a feminist,” the Canadian country star told the outlet. “I see myself as a very independent thinker, and not necessarily because I’m a woman.”
“I am referred to as a feminist. I think I have a lot of feminist points of view because I am so defensive of the vulnerable woman, I really am. I just feel that I’m strong as a person. I’m not strong for a woman. I’m not independent for a woman. I’m not self-sufficient for a woman. I just am a woman,” Twain said.
The 60-year-old singer went on to emphasize that men require protection to the same extent as women.
“It’s, like, ‘Oh, the boy needs less protection than the girl because he’s a boy.’ That is so not true, and it’s not fair,” she continued. “Vulnerable men need just as much protection as vulnerable women.”
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Twain also reflected on how feminism was perceived during her youth.
“Growing up for so many years the word had so much negativity and confusion around it that I didn’t personally proclaim myself as a feminist,” she said. “Even though when I look at the values and morals of what a feminist is, of course I align with them.”
During her interview, the You’re Still the One singer opened up about how she was “malnourished” during her 2019 Let’s Go residency in Las Vegas, which resulted in two torn muscles in her thigh.
“In menopause you lose control of your body,” Twain told the outlet. “So all of a sudden I’m bloating and I’m definitely not in control. I can’t just lose five pounds.”
She said that her perception of her body changes resulted in her not “looking at myself in the mirror” before performances.
“I hated my body. I’m, like, ‘Oh, I cannot stand this changing body,’” she said. “But that was so unhealthy. Who cannot look at themselves in the mirror?”
The Any Man of Mine singer also said that she began doing intense exercises and cutting out fats and sugars from her diet in order to lose weight.
“I was doing very unhealthy things,” she recalled. “And I was working my body more than I was feeding it, to keep up with the strain.”
The five-time Grammy winner said that her actions took a toll on her thigh injury and she knew she needed to change her mindset in order to heal.
“Now I’m, like, bring on the mirrors, I’m going to look at myself all day long!” Twain said. “Menopause has been very good for me because I’ve learnt that some things you cannot control.”
This isn’t the first time Twain has opened up about her thoughts on feminism.
In 2022, Twain spoke with Yahoo Entertainment about her documentary, Shania Twain: Not Just a Girl, and revealed that she doesn’t consider herself to be a “self-proclaimed feminist.”
“I think it’s all in the perception of whoever is making their conclusions about me,” Twain told the outlet. “I’m not, like, a self-proclaimed feminist. I’m just myself. I’m just me. I’m making my own rules as I go. I myself feel like I had a huge shell to break out of, coming out of my teens.”
She continued: “I was always fighting my feminine curves in order to be taken seriously. And when I started to get creative freedom and these creative platforms as a recording artist, I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m going to play with this now. This is my playground. I am breaking free from this nonsense of pretending I’m not a girl, that I’m not a woman, or trying to hide behind something else to be taken seriously.’”
“So, that’s probably feminism, in its own way. It’s to me a very personal rejection of these stigmas that we are as women often branded with,” Twain added.
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