Dolly Parton's sister blasted the country star, saying she’s "ashamed" of her older sibling's silence on sexual harassment amid the #MeToo movement. Stella Parton publicly criticized her sister for not doing more to raise awareness on abuse within the music industry during a recent appearance on the podcast Our Stories.
"I’m ashamed of my sister for keeping her mouth shut," the 69-year-old said after Dolly Parton dismissed Jane Fonda's claims that harassment in the workplace had grown worse since the 1980s, The Guardian reported. "She can run it when it is about something else, but speak up about injustice, Dolly Parton. Speak up. And speak out. Defend women, and don’t just do it in a little song. Speak up," Stella Parton continued.
Earlier this year Dolly Parton admitted that she did not see herself as a feminist in an interview with SkyNews.
"I think that I just live my femininity," the nine-time Grammy winner said. "I mean, people say 'are you a feminist?' And I say, I don't know what that means." Dolly Parton added that she was "proud to be a woman, proud to be a woman in business."
In an interview with the Guardian last weekend, the 73-year-old shrugged off Fonda's assertions about the uptick in workplace harassment cases in the last four decades.
"I’m pretty sure it’s always been bad. It’s just that with the #MeToo movement women are bolder to speak out against it," she said adding that while she supported women's rights, she did not feel the need to label herself as a feminist.
"I must be if being a feminist means I’m all for women, yes. But I don’t feel I have to march, hold up a sign or label myself," she said. "I think the way I have conducted my life and my business and myself speaks for itself. I don’t think of it as being feminist. It’s not a label I have to put on myself. I’m just all for gals."
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