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Sabrina Carpenter Album Controversy: Women’s Organization Slams ‘Regressive’ Cover As Fans Defend It As Satire

A Scottish women’s charity said Carpenter’s new album cover evokes “tired tropes” of women being “possessions,” while fans have defended her cover as satirical commentary on sexism.

Glasgow Women’s Aid, a Scotland-based advocacy organization for women experiencing domestic abuse, slammed Carpenter in a post on Instagram on Thursday calling the album cover “regressive,” and stating it evokes “tired tropes that reduce women to pets, props, and possessions and promote an element of violence and control.” A column in The Telegraph Thursday complained in a headline that Carpenter’s “over-sexed, degrading new album cover has gone too far,” and the writer Poppie Platt noted Carpenter has many young fans and said her marketing is “troubling,” comparing it to TikTok trends like the “trad-wife” aesthetic that promote subservience to men. But in a cover story in Rolling Stone published Thursday, Carpenter addressed critics of her sex-positive stage presence, stating she feels she has “never lived in a time where women have been picked apart more, and scrutinized in every capacity.” While performing her song “Juno” on tour, which contains the lyric: “Wanna try out some freaky positions? “It’s always so funny to me when people complain,” Carpenter told Rolling Stone, stating there are “so many more moments than the ‘Juno’ positions, but those are the ones you post every night and comment on.

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