To mark International Women’s Day, GLAMOUR asked four high-profile feminists to nominate their male ally. Marie-Claire Chappet spoke to them about what male support means to them, and why it can be such a pivotal tool against misogyny. In this instalment, supermodel Leomie Anderson and her rapper boyfriend Lancey Foux explain why allyship is the foundation of their relationship.
“It was just nothing but green flags,” says Leomie Anderson, the 29-year-old model, entrepreneur and activist, recalling her first few dates with her boyfriend, musical artist and model Lancey Foux (real name Lance Omal), 26. She is backstage at the GLAMOUR shoot, perched on Lancey’s knee in a fashion that could come off as performative PDA on some, but not this couple who – after six years together – exude an innate intimacy.And “innate” is how Leomie describes Lancey’s male allyship several times throughout the shoot. “I noticed it first just in the way he spoke about women in general,” she says. “I don’t think he even knows how to express it, but he just is an ally, naturally.”Leomie has made a career from speaking openly about the importance of intersectional feminism, and views male allyship as a vital part of this. “But it’s more than just a man wearing a feminist T-shirt,” she adds. “It’s about what men do when nobody’s watching or when it is just you in a room full of your boys. I think that being a real male ally is about taking affirmative action.”
"The best change comes when you live it. I don’t tend to think about it, I just try to do it”
Lancey chimes in, then, almost apologetically: “But I’m not an activist, you know, someone that says: today we’re doing this and we’re going to stop this. I think that the best change comes when you live it. I don’t tend to think about it, I just try to do it.”Yet Lancey – whose career has seen him succeed in the world of high-fashion modelling, release five albums and gain a hype man in the shape of Ye (Kanye West) – is someone who evidently underestimates his own power as an ally.
Terms such as ‘toxic masculinity’ or ‘gender disparity’ may not come as naturally to him as they do for Leomie, but his allyship feels all the more powerful for the fact that instead, he has an uncanny ability to nail an issue on the head in one naturally felt assessment.When describing his first experience of misogyny – witnessing first-hand an abusive relationship between a husband and wife who lived upstairs from him when he was a child – he says: “The guy hasn’t got the same energy for another male. From that point, you’re not even just an aggressive person, you’re just directly aggressive to women, which is wrong, you shouldn’t be that.” Lancey penetrates to the heart of the matter without jargon or overthought. In this way, he is not just the ideal ally to women, but a relatable voice for other men.
“Being a woman in this industry is hard… It’s not a place where just because women are seen the most, we’re respected the most”
It’s easy to see why Leomie would choose Lancey as a partner and also her ally for today’s video and covershoot. Her modelling career shot her to fame aged 14; she has since worked with huge brands including Victoria’s Secret, Fenty, Burberry and Tom Ford. But modelling has also exposed her to the undercurrents of misogyny and racism in the fashion industry. “The way women were treated and the way that we were talked to as young women, it’s like they wanted to crush our spirits,” she says. “I realised that from a young age, being a woman in this industry is going to be hard. It’s not a place where just because women are seen the most, we’re going to be respected the most.”These experiences inspired her to dedicate much of her professional life to female empowerment, via her platform LAPP, which befgan as a blog and a small clothing line in 2016. It has now become a full athleisure brand beloved of Rihanna, and a truly impactful digital magazine that forefronts women’s issues. She met her boyfriend as LAPP was launching, when Lancey, who also works as a model alongside his successful career as a rapper, introduced Leomie to her first stylist.“My stylist is a gay man,” explains Leomie, “and I remember being surprised – having this idea that young black rappers of [Lancey’s] age would have prejudices. But not Lance. He’s really into vintage clothes and would go and do returns with my stylist after college. He was always so open and so great with women too and that was honestly a rare thing to find in a man – especially with some of my experiences in fashion.”Lancey is all about battling stereotypes, embracing whatever looks are thrown at him on the GLAMOUR shoot, proudly talking about the fact that his record label is owned by a woman and speaking about misconceptions of rappers.
“The image of the club and the strip clubs – that’s just bravado,” he says. “These are the things that make a stereotypical rebel, but obviously everyone knows that’s not what a rapper stands for. That’s just a very fickle image, which sadly a lot of people eat up.”
“I don’t have to manage his ego; he’s never threatened… He’s always believed in my success”
The pair operate so clearly as a team. “I think it’s because, before there was ever a partnership between us, there was a friendship,” Leomie says. She briefly compares Lancey to previous partners, marvelling at the absence of fragility in his ego. “He’s secure in himself,” she says. “I don’t have to manage his ego; he’s never threatened. He always encouraged me to do what I wanted to do. He’s always believed in my success.”Leomie believes teamwork is the answer to addressing gender disparity. Her eyes were opened to this issue at school. “It was the way everyone would speak about teen pregnancy, it was all on the girl,” she remembers. “The questions were all about ‘what is she going to do, is she going to get social housing now, how is she going to sort it out?’ There was never any mention of the guy.”You don’t imagine that would ever be an issue with Lancey, who talks openly about how he is “learning about periods, because what if we have a daughter?”
Though his feminism is clearly innate, he is constantly learning from Leomie. “She’s taught me how women see things and how they want to be treated,” he says.“You want to know what I feel that Lance has taught me?” Leomie jumps in. “It’s to raise the bar of expectation when we think about men. When we say things like ‘boys will be boys,’ I think we give men too much leeway – we baby them too much.
Whereas Lance has shown me that there are guys out there who are very aware of how women are treated by society and want to change it. By not acknowledging that, we give other men too many choices to be bad people. Instead they should be…”“More like Lancey?” I suggest.“Yeah!” she laughs, and gives him a kiss.
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