by Sariel Hana

It’s official. I want to marry Grimes.

25-year-old Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, is a triple threat: artist, musician, director and now… feminist?! Just when you thought she couldn’t get any cooler! Aside from being a seriously skilled artist, Grimes graduated from “the Harvard of Canada,” McGill University where she studied Russian literature and neuroscience. Her most recent album, Visions, was declared “one of the most impressive albums of the year” by the New York Times. What now, haterz?

On April 23rd, Grimes posted an epic manifesto on her Tumblr page about the trials and tribulations of being a young woman in the music industry.

Grimes fits the pop star “standard”–she’s skinny, young, white, and beautiful–but she doesn’t want to be another sex symbol sell out:  “I don’t want to be infantilized because I refuse to be sexualized,” she writes. She also expressed her frustrations with “mansplaining” from men who don’t think she can be successful on her own:

“I’m tired of the weird insistence that I need a band or I need to work with outside producers (and I’m eternally grateful to the people who don’t do this).

I’m tired of men who aren’t professional or even accomplished musicians continually offering to ‘help me out’ (without being asked), as if I did this by accident and “’m gonna flounder without them. Or as if the fact that I’m a woman makes me incapable of using technology. I have never seen this kind of thing happen to any of my male peers.”

She recounts her experiences being “molested at shows or on the street by people who perceive me as an object that exists for their personal satisfaction,” and goes on to give us a perfect definition for feminism:

“I’m sad that my desire to be treated as an equal and as a human being is interpreted as hatred of men, rather than a request to be included and respected (I have four brothers and many male best friends and a dad and iI promise I do not hate men at all, nor do I believe that all men are sexist or that all men behave in the ways described above).

Grimes also described “being considered vapid for liking pop music or caring about fashion as if these things inherently lack substance or as if the things i enjoy somehow make me a lesser person.” I’m so with her–just because something is considered “girly” doesn’t make it moronic!

On creeps harassing Grimes and her dancers:

“I’m tired of creeps on message boards discussing whether or not they’d “fuck” me.

I’m tired of people harassing my dancers and treating them like they aren’t human beings”

On how a “waif” is considered to be either an abandoned or homeless child or a sexually attractive woman:

“I’m tired of being referred to as ‘cute,’ as a ‘waif’ etc., even when the author, fan, friend, family member etc. is being positive. (fyi)

waif |wāf|
noun
1 a homeless and helpless person, esp. a neglected or abandoned child: she is foster-mother to various waifs and strays.
• an abandoned pet animal.

cute |kyoot|
adjective
1 attractive in a pretty or endearing way: a cute kitten.
• informal sexually attractive.”

Grimes concluded her post with the following:

“I have so much love for everyone who has been cool and amazing. I have the best job in the world but I’m done with being passive about any kind of status quo that allows anyone to suffer or to be disrespected”

You probably want to marry Grimes now too. I guess we’ll all have to settle for listening to Visions on repeat.