La Roux enjoys dressing the way she likes, dislikes it when others do the same

Elly Jackson of La Roux seems to have made a bit of a cock-up in her most recent interview , and declared that women become entangled in abusive relationships because they dress in a way that attracts violent men:

I know that there's far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt and a tank top. If you're a real woman you can turn someone on in a plastic bag just by looking at them. That's what a real woman is, when you've got the sex eyes. I think you attract a certain kind of man by dressing like that. Women wonder why they get beaten up, or having relationships with arsehole men. Because you attracted one, you twat.

Not only does this assume that a) violent men can be easily detected, and therefore easily avoided, and b) that women bring such attentions upon themselves, but it also tells us the kind of woman that Elly hates.

It is no secret that due to her androgynous image, Elly had a difficult time at school, much of which I have no doubt was at the hands of other girls. It is understandable that in an environment where "male attention was prized", a level of contempt will arise when you see your peers indulging in behaviour you deem degrading. But it is foolish to believe the wider world is exactly the same as school.

The women running down the high street on Saturday night in stilletos and miniskirts are not necessarily the same girls who were awful to you at school.They do not necessarily have low self-esteem. And nobody goes out hoping to become involved in an abusive relationship.

It's clearly a great and wonderful thing when someone chooses to subvert standard conventions of beauty, particularly whilst still a teenager themselves. But why such scorn towards those who don't? Why the need to draw lines along body types and fashion? Why are such women the enemy?

We find people who look like us appealing, and it is a comfort to know - particularly if we feel to be an outsider in a situation such as Jackson was- that there are others who personify the values we hold. And it’s great that Jackson can be that person for young girls who feel alienated because of their looks. But this does not mean she gets to denigrate women whom she associates with an oppressive standard of beauty as if they themselves created it.

We all try to negotiate the unfair social signifiers that come with our natural look (that curvy women are sexy, that blondes are universally attractive, that skinny girls are fashion plates, that East Asian girls are either dainty dolls or sexy geishas). And each different look brings different connotations of values and behaviour along with it.

The tanned girl in the push up bra, the Cheryl Coles, the glamour models, the Megan Foxes, are labelled as being about sexuality first. They are considered lower-class, they aren't known for their education; women may mistrust them because they are supposed to embody a certain male fantasy.
When compared to the women that schoolgirls wish to emulate, there is a level of over-lap. Essentially the look is user-friendly, more down-to-earth, more accessible to both emulate and admire, and with that comes along the ‘High-Street Honey’ image promoted by FHM and aped by its younger brothers Nuts and Zoo. It becomes easy to equate the two. But women have a limited control over their appearance: pale girls can tan, but it doesn't work the other way round; I wish I could channel Audrey Hepburn but that's just not the way I look. Therefore, we become attuned to social signifiers- a vintage 80s dress or something by Gareth Pugh is tough and sexy in the right way- it's art. A short skirt from Jane Norman isn't.

Whenever a woman is spiteful about “sexy” girls, she reinforces the paradigms above. We don't choose our bust size, and a tan is not a signifier of someone’s sexual behaviour in itself. Flat-chested, pale girls can be just as sexy as the former, but it doesn't have to be one or the other.

Jackson is constantly interpreting the looks of other women, positively or negatively according to her own standards, but she doesn't like it when the same is done to her. La Roux falls in to the common trap- denounce and denigrate what you aren't, without trying to fully understand another's perspective. Exactly what was done to her.

Co-written by Rosemary and Aqsa