Shania Twain confronts longstanding narrative that her music promotes man-hating

Shania Twain set the record straight after decades of her biggest hits being embraced as feminist anthems — insisting she was never out to bash men.

Twain's influence has stretched far beyond country music, with some of today's biggest stars crediting her as an inspiration. When Harry Styles brought the Canadian singer onstage at Coachella in 2022, he revealed that her music had been part of his life since childhood. "In the car with my mother as a child, this lady taught me to sing. She also taught me that men are trash," Styles said while introducing Twain.

But Twain doesn't exactly remember delivering that second lesson.

"I didn’t ever say that," Twain recently told The New York Times.

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Hits like "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!," "That Don't Impress Me Much" and "Any Man of Mine" have long been embraced by fans as female empowerment anthems.

But Twain pushed back on that narrative.

"It wasn’t meant to be a feminist message," she told the outlet.

For "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!," Twain noted there is "no anger in it" and she didn't write it from the perspective of "a sexist person." In fact, she wasn't even thinking about men when she wrote the 1999 hit.

"I was just owning and celebrating what I think I waited too damn long to celebrate," she said. "People want to celebrate who they are, and what they are, and they don’t want to be criticized for just being themselves. And I think that is a liberty that we all deserve. I certainly waited way too long to give it to myself."

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This isn't the first time Twain has pushed back on being labeled a feminist.

"I don’t see myself as a feminist," she told The Times back in June. "I see myself as a very independent thinker and not necessarily because I’m a woman. I am referred to as a feminist. I think I have a lot of feminist points of view because I am so defensive of the vulnerable woman, I really am."

Twain argued that even well-intentioned labels can unnecessarily separate women from men.

"I just feel that I’m strong as a person," she said. "It’s like saying, ‘You look great for your age.’"

In her view, strength and independence shouldn't need a gender qualifier.

"I’m not strong for a woman," Twain explained. "I’m not independent for a woman. I’m not self-sufficient for a woman. I just am a woman. And this falls on boys too."

"It’s, like, ‘Oh, the boy needs less protection than the girl because he’s a boy,'" she added. "That is so not true and it’s not fair. Vulnerable men need just as much protection as vulnerable women."

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Twain elaborated on her stance, clarifying that her discomfort was with the feminist label itself — shaped by the negativity and confusion she associated with it growing up — rather than its underlying values.

"It’s a tricky word for me, as growing up for so many years the word had so much negativity and confusion around it that I didn’t personally proclaim myself as a feminist, even though when I look at the values and morals of what a feminist is, of course I align with them," she later wrote to The Times.

Before becoming one of country music's biggest stars, Twain said she spent years feeling uncomfortable in her own skin.

"I’ve been very shy about my body from a very young age … to the point where I would not go to the beach in a bathing suit," Twain told "Extra" in 2023. "I would say probably really tortured by it from the age of 10."

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The country music star recalled filming the music video for "You're Still the One." She released the ballad in 1998 and noted that the music video allowed her to step outside her daily life at the time.

"I was 30 when I had my first radio hit. … In that video, I’m braless, I’m allowing the platform of stepping out of my daily self into this world of video-making and making decisions that give me this freedom to, like, do things I wouldn’t normally do in my daily life," Twain told the outlet.

Now, Twain said she has found freedom in embracing the femininity she once hid.

"I started taking ownership," she told The New York Times, explaining that the music videos she created at the beginning of her career "freed" her. The country-pop star began to embrace her femininity "without feeling shame or feeling like I have to hide it for the sake of my talent."

She explained, "The songs just [became] more and more about that liberation, and about making statements with a smile. Because I wasn’t angry at anyone. I was just, like, ‘Wow, it’s time to celebrate being a woman. This is really, actually great.’"