Ariana Grande is the outspoken hero the music industry needs right now

Ariana Grande. She’s gone from successful actress to even more successful singer and songwriter, knocking out albums and hits with ease, but she is also one of the most outspoken stars for the younger generations to look up to nowadays. Ariana is unafraid to call out sexism and express her sexuality and encouraging young women to do the same, with her most recent defence of women’s rights being tweeted.

If you haven’t already heard about the story, she was getting food out with boyfriend Mac Miller who was approached by an excitable young male fan who then said to Mac “ariana is sexy as hell man i see you, i see you hitting that” Rightly so, Ariana was furious and humiliated. Objectification of women isn’t new, but saying it about a girl to her boyfriend right in front of her is another level.

As Ariana herself says, such open objectification of women is what contributes to what some men would call the ‘unnecessary’ and ‘excessive’ fear women often show walking alone, or on a night out. Aggressive sexual heckling happens to women so regularly that most of us just continue walking and don’t want to be too confrontational. It’s easy to imagine that a young, relatively green popstar like Ariana should shut her mouth and put up with the status quo, but she’s using her platform for good, speaking out regardless of how it’s received.

That’s the most recent example of Ariana being great that everyone is banging on about, but it’s not a one-off. There was the infamous interview with Power 105 Radio, where they asked the serious and insightful journalistic question “If you could use makeup or your phone one last time, which one would you pick?” “Is this men assuming that that’s what girls would have to choose between? You need a little brushing up on equality over here”, Ariana answered, without missing a beat.

Calling out sexism in the media as well as in everyday life, she said “I’ll never be able to swallow the fact that people feel the need to attach a successful woman to a man when they say her name,”. So often, as soon as a famous woman marries or even dates a famous man, he takes the superior position, and the woman becomes the wife or girlfriend rather than, I don’t know, a person still in her own right?

Ariana has also often been mocked or bullied by men (and women) for her ‘stick thin’ body that is deemed unattractive compared to curves by some, but she’s continually called attention to the double standard in attacking someone for how they look in this way. Beauty standards change over time, a sentiment not lost on Ariana. It might not be the most sophisticated commentary in the world, but it means a lot coming from such a high-profile, influential young woman. Especially on Twitter, where misogynistic abuse and internet bullying is so prevalent, a voice like hers should not be discounted.

Going into 2017, after the bullshit of media and everyday sexism in the past year, we need dangerous women like Ariana, to keep fighting the good fight and keep letting us know that whether you live in the public eye or not,