Kelsea Ballerini Calls Out Poll Pitting Country Women Against Each Other [PIC]
“This isn’t ‘mean girls,’ this is country music,” Kelsea Ballerini quipped in a passionate Instagram post about the treatment of female country artists.
By austind03 on April 12, 2018
Kelsea Ballerini became a breakout star in country music with her 2014 debut, “Love Me Like You Mean It.” However, a recent online poll unintentionally struck a nerve with the singer, and she decided to speak her mind about it.
According to CMT, a country music Twitter account recently asked its followers which four female artists they were looking forward to seeing the most at the ACM Awards.
As many have noted the lack of women in the country music in recent months, the seemingly harmless poll carried an unfortunate implication: “there really isn’t room for everyone at the proverbial Nashville table.”
As Kelsea Ballerini was one of the women featured in the poll, she expressed her displeasure at being pitted against her friends. She took to Instagram to share a mini rant about the treatment of females in the genre:
“This made me really bummed today. Since I put out my first single over 4 years ago, every interview includes some form of a question about the females in country music… or the current lack thereof. So we swim upstream and wear ourselves out trying to be heard and finally see the charts start to mention a few more of our names, the categories recognize a few more of our names, the categories recognize a few more of our songs, and even start to cheer each other on. But then there’s something as simple and seemingly harmless as this that sets us back. It takes dozens of talented, determined, hard-working, kind women that want to continue the incredible marks on the genre the women before us have made, and it makes us feel like there’s only one spot available.
She continued on to explain effect it has on her:
“It makes me sad because I feel lit. Heck, it makes me insecure. It makes me feel tension in a room where there is another girl that is successful… It makes me assume the worst. Which is actually CRAZY.”
However, Ballerini still had a message of hope that things will change soon. She concluded her post with the fantastic zinger:
“This isn’t ‘mean girls,’ this is country music. Where you actually CAN sit with us.”
Country Music: Chris Stapleton, Thomas Rhett Leading The Pack In ACM Nominations
The Twitter account that originally posted the poll later gave a sincere apology to Ballerini and all women in music.
Unsurprisingly, Ballerini isn’t the first country star to talk about these issues. Even Miranda Lambert called the dominance of men in the genre “B.S., straight up” during an October interview.
We are proud of Kelsea Ballerini for speaking her mind on these issues and we wish her the best.
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