Carrie Underwood is currently on the second leg of her Cry Pretty Tour 360, where she is once again joined by Runaway June and Maddie & Tae. The American Idol alum was already a fan of the music by both acts, but is even more a fan now that she sees how hard the women work, even if that hard work isn’t always recognized.
“I think we still have a long way to go,” Underwood told Jenny McCarthy in an interview for SiriusXM’s The Highway, speaking about women in country music. “I think it’s a golden age for talent. I think there are so many women that are – I see Runaway June and Maddie & Tae, and they work so stinkin’ hard, and they’re so good. I just wish there was a little more payoff for just how much the women in country music deserve.”
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The conversation about women not receiving the same amount of airplay on radio as their male counterparts has been swirling around for years, which is no longer enough for Underwood.
“I feel like we’ve been talking about it for a long time,” said the singer. “I know it’s not a lack of talent. We’ll keep doing what we do and keep bringing it.”
Underwood feels compelled to keep championing female artists because of the artists before her, who inspired her while she was a still a child living in rural Oklahoma.
“I imagine the women that I grew up listening to, and I was so lucky,” Underwood said. “I had Reba. I had Trisha. I had Shania. I had Faith. I had a ton of women to be able to look up to, and it’s kind of like, we need that for the next generation. We want girls to see us, that we’re doing what we do, and be like, ‘I wanna do that.’ Not, ‘I wish I could, but I guess I can’t.’ We want that. We want them.”
Underwood isn’t entirely dismayed by the status of women in country music, and sees an unexpected silver lining through it all.
“If there’s one good thing that’s happened from all of this conversation that’s been happening around women in country music, it’s that I feel like we’ve all kind of banded together and can lift each other up and support each other,” Underwood maintained.
Underwood’s Cry Pretty Tour 360 wraps up on Oct. 31. Find dates on her website.
Photo Credit: Getty images / John Shearer
