Lorde and Lena Dunham Talk About Feminism and Taylor Swift

Lorde is featured on the cover of Dazed Magazine's Girls Who Rule the World issue, and was interviewed by incessant interrupter Lena Dunham. Thankfully, the conversation made up for Dunham's paragraphs-long interjections, as they spoke about intersectional feminism, navigating pop music as an artist in a largely male-driven industry and how Taylor Swift welcomed them both into the wonderful world of supportive female friendships.

Speaking to the beginnings of her career, Lorde noted that she asserted herself and her vision from the start and, in doing so, avoided the typical over-sexualization suffered by so many pop stars. She says, "I sometimes get asked, ‘Did people try to sexualise you early on in your career?’ But I came into this with such a strong viewpoint – even when I was 13 or 14, my sense of self felt too permanent for anyone to f--- with. You know, whenever there was a makeover suggestion or like, ‘Do you wanna try this push- up bra?’ I think I freaked enough people out – or intimidated enough people – that it didn’t happen. But also, does that still happen these days? Is that a thing? I feel like people think more of teenage girls than that."

And while Lorde cites her mother as a strong influence on her life and she doesn't shy away from the feminist label, she says that she has mostly male friends. But her reasoning has nothing to do with being just too different from your average girl to be able to relate. It's because guys are simple. She said, "I feel like teenage boys, all their emotions are really simple and diluted. Teenage girls feel everything so intensely and are so multi-faceted. Boys are just like, they’ll rest a head on your shoulder and you know exactly what that means."

But then in swooped Taylor Swift, and she welcomed Lorde into her clique of famous female friends, despite her lack of at-the-ready boy advice. "She definitely brought me into this amazing world of supportive female friendship," she says. "For me, someone starts talking about boys and I’m like, ‘I just don’t know what to say.’ I’m useless in that capacity and that was why I thought, ‘Well, I can’t have girl friends (because) I don’t know how to talk about boys.’ But Taylor just glosses over the fact that I’m terrible at that and she’s just like, ‘It’s OK, I’ll love you for your other qualities.’"

And just in case you're not already impressed with Lorde, who has shown herself to be wiser than your average famous 18-year-old, she also talks about how important it is to not just be a feminist, but for your brand of feminism to be intersectional and all-encompassing. She said, "One thing I hadn’t come face-to-face with until I was about 16 was thinking really hard about whiteness and what it means to be white, and all these questions around race and sexuality, which are incredibly important. For a long time, I wasn’t aware of how important it was to be a feminist for all women."

Being able to examine yourself in a critical manner, not only recognizing your shortcomings but actively working to change them, is something that doesn't typically happen until you're older (if it happens at all). Lorde is surprisingly self-aware, and it's refreshing.

You can read the rest of the interview at Dazed Magazine.

See Photos of Lorde + More Celebs Without Makeup