Does this bother me? To an extent, yes it does. Ideally, everyone would be totally interested in feminism, but that is obviously not the case. However, does this mean I should hate Lana Del Rey? Maybe not.
You see, Lana Del Rey never said that she believes women are inherently inferior to men, or that women don't deserve rights, or whatever. She simply said that the topic itself is not as interesting to her as other things. Her songs may not be as anti-feminist as they seem as well, since many of them seem to be not about women in general, but about her own life experiences. For example, her song "Carmen" opens with "darling, darling, doesn't have a problem lying to herself 'cause her liquor's top shelf," which is likely a reference to her struggles with alcohol dependency during her teen years. If her life experiences were not empowering, why would the songs she writes about her life be? It's like when Stevie Nicks wrote her songs for the Rumours album: her recent experiences were of heartbreak and frustration and general sadness, and so that's what she wrote about when she wrote songs like "Dreams" and "Gold Dust Woman." Rather than empowering women, Lana Del Rey gives voice to the struggles, delights, and experiences of women who are left unable to feel empowered, and that's not any less important.
I feel she even recognizes the need for women to unite and be strong together rather than to divide and compete with each other, since her song "This is What Makes Us Girls" includes the lyrics "we don't stick together 'cause we put love first," possibly to reveal the flaws that often plague female relationships: girls are taught that other women should see each other as competition rather than as friends. Therefore, many girls avoid befriending other females, or blame another woman for the failure of a relationship.
Also, Lana Del Rey offers her own definition of a feminist, as (I'm paraphrasing here) "a woman who can do whatever she wants." She writes her own songs, has her own unique sense of style, designs her own music videos, and voices her own (however controversial) opinions almost without fear of backlash. It may seem that Lana fits her own definition of feminist without even realizing it.
However, I feel that despite everything I just said, Lana Del Rey just isn't a relevant person to bring into the feminist debate. She has admitted that she doesn't know a lot regarding the topic. It's almost like, would you want to bring Beyonce into a discussion regarding nuclear physics? Even though Beyonce is an important person in our popular culture, and despite the fact that nuclear physics is an important topic, it doesn't make sense to bring her into a discussion about nuclear physics because she, being a lifelong performer and not a scientist, likely doesn't know enough about it to hold her own in a discussion regarding such a topic. Lana Del Rey is as relevant a person in feminist discussion as Beyonce is in nuclear physics research, and while both are fabulous, glamorous, and talented women, it doesn't mean they're qualified to take part in every discussion, every cause, every debate. Nobody is.
And that's why I allow myself to indulge in Lana Del Rey free of feminist guilt.
~Abbey xoxo
(Also, her song "Young and Beautiful" that she wrote and performed for The Great Gatsby was what I cried to as I went through a devastating heartbreak and so that must be worth something...right?)