Emily Ratajkowski goes into detail about feminism, dating as a mother, and botox

Supermodel, author, and activist Emily Ratajkowski is the January cover story for Glamour UK, and she gives an unfiltered look into what goes on in her mind when she’s confronted with issues of women in media, motherhood, celebrity, and being a woman in the male gaze.

The in-depth conversation with the outlet focuses a lot on the nuances, complexities and even conflicting behaviours that inhabit her feminism, with EmRata stating about her brand of feminism: “sometimes it’s just giving women the benefit of the doubt.”

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata)

The interview starts off with EmRata openly admitting that she gets botox, but tempers it with noting that she prefers her face to move and have expression, indicating she doesn’t go overboard with it.

The conversation then goes into detail about how the supermodel views her relationship with her body, while at the same time being aware of the male gaze and how her body might be seen by other feminists as an object rather than a subject.

"In the past two years, how I feel is I just care a whole lot less what people think,” she admits. “So, if I am in a certain type of mood where I want to post something or wear something that I could be judged for because it’s, quote-unquote ‘desperate’, I’m a little bit like, ‘Well, that’s where I’m at’. I’ve learned to prioritize my own happiness, probably because of my son. I feel I have bigger fish to fry than caring about the politics of whether or not I’m appealing to the male gaze in a given moment."

She continues, “Because I know there are plenty of times where I don’t – and I just am living my life and it feels great. There’s this huge conversation happening with Gen-Z or the Taylor Swift lyric, ‘I don’t dress for women. I don’t dress for men. I dress for revenge.’ Who do you dress for? Female gaze? The male gaze?”

“And I kind of feel like everybody’s bullsh***ing when people say, ‘Oh, no, I’m doing this for the girlies.’ It’s like, ‘Well, yeah, but you still look kind of hot.’ There’s a thing. And that’s great. And so I guess where I am is a little bit of a true liberation, in a personal sense, in the way that I just don’t really give a f**k,” she adds.

 

 

 

 

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Her book, 2021’s My Body, contained a series of essays where she explored the evolution of her feminism, how men in the modelling and entertainment industry have taken advantage of her, and even accused musician Robin Thicke of groping her during the filming of the “Blurred Lines” music video. In the Glamour UK chat, she marvels at how feminism has tackled these moments and evolved.

"It is amazing to see the kind of evolution of politics that’s happened [recently] around intersectionality in feminism. Five years ago, the conversation was just the ‘girl boss’; it was the white feminism at its finest, capitalist, nightmare hell. So, thank God we’ve moved past that.”

She continues, “I know my personal politics and sometimes, honestly, feminism is just giving women the benefit of the doubt. I just absolutely refuse to be as hard on women as we are as a culture. I just can’t do it."

 

 

 

 

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Feminism has also influenced her relationship with motherhood. She has a three year old son, Sylvester Apollo, that she shares with ex-husband Sebastian Bear-McClard, and she notes throughout the interview that the patriarchy isn’t kind to single mothers who are dating or who have a job that involves their body.

“I just want to set the record straight. In a custody battle, if you are a single mother who’s dating, then it is not a good look. The most important thing for my child is him being safe and us being together. I would never risk that. So, I don’t know how that’s coming to mind that it would somehow be appealing for me – separately from how it even just makes me feel. Just pragmatically, if you know anything about the court system, you know anything about divorce, there is a decent amount of sexism embroiled in that and embedded in that system. And the most important thing for me is my child. So let’s just put that idea to rest. It’s hard on the relationships and it’s hard for me personally.”

She goes on to say that even when she feels unsexy in her own skin, her feminism has shaped how she views her mom-bod. “It changed the surface-level relationship I had with my image and my body, where it was just this thing to be looked at and it was either doing a good job or a bad job in that regard. Now I see it as this amazing vessel that actually knows a lot more than me in some ways.”

While she doesn’t go into detail about her dating life - she’s been linked to Harry Styles, Eric Andre, and Pete Davidson - she does say that she doesn’t try to avoid the paparazzi anymore because it’s futile.

She states, “I could do the very crazy, high-profile thing of going through the back door, blah, blah, blah. And I haven’t done that. And there’s been a few moments over the past year, even in the last six months, where I’ve been like ‘OK, well, I can’t keep having this experience,’ so I want to hide… and I’ve done that successfully, but then it’s like the one time I’m out on the street, it’s a photo. So, I think I’ve just given up on trying to control it, for better or for worse…”

This interview comes on the heels of EmRata posting a provocative statement to her official Instagram, where she says in the caption, “i’m never beating the bimbo allegations so why not lean in, you know?” Which definitely seems adjunct to the IDGAF attitude of the Glamour interview.

 

 

 

 

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You can read the entire interview here.