Beth Ditto Counts Mama Cass and Miss Piggy Among Her Feminist Idols

While many women in rock are qualified to speak about feminism, few are as blunt and candid as Beth Ditto. After the recent release of her self-titled debut EP, the Gossip singer, in honor of Women's History Month, spoke with Spinner about her feminist role models. As is usually the case with Ditto, the list is not quite what you'd expect.

"I have a lot of feminist idols. My favorite thing about growing up in Arkansas -- well, not favorite but something I've always felt grateful for -- was that I really had to dig for what I could," she tells Spinner. "There was no internet. There wasn't tons of feminist literature floating around."

"It started with Gloria Steinem at a really young age, like 11 or something, identifying as a feminist, and through that, being able to be like 'Oh my god, this is actually super-feminist.' I really worshipped Mama Cass a lot. Mama Cass, who was really fat and she didn't lose weight. Yeah, she went on diets but for the most part of her life and the better part of her career she was a big person. Those things are really inspiring.

"I worshipped Ethel Merman and I worshipped Ethel Merman a lot. It's incredible -- Ethel Merman was a conventional singer. Her naming her child Ethel Merman, Jr., was, to me, one of the coolest feminist things. Aretha Franklin was a teenage mom, a musician who came from an incredibly Christian background, but there was a lot of love, which is really inspiring in a feminist way. Whoopi Goldberg was also a really big one for me -- she was one of the first people I heard talk about back-alley abortions.

"All those things slipped under the radar. Feminist theory that wasn't accessible, which is why Riot Grrrl was so cool. It basically gave academic language to people who didn't have one at all, a feminist language. It gave us an understanding, made it more accessible to people who weren't in college. That was really rad.

"Also, this sounds really hilarious but I swear to god, she changed my life: Miss Piggy was a huge one. I'm not kidding. She was an incredible feminist icon, especially for a kid in the '80s. She also abuses Kermit, I'll admit -- I'm not saying that's feminist. But especially as a fat kid, people used to call me Miss Piggy all the time but it never dawned on me that it was an insult until people pointed it out. I thought it was really cool, like 'Yeah, Miss Piggy rules!'"

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