Dua Lipa feels she is ''more open around female energy''.

The 'Don't Start Now' hitmaker says all her ''very closest friends'' are girls, as she finds it easier to talk to women.

She said: ''My very, very closest friends are all girls. I always feel it's easier to talk to girls and I'm more open around female energy. Maybe if women in general had a little bit more of that in studios it wouldn't feel so intimidating to begin with.''

Dua has also called for more women to work in the music industry and has urged schools to help to encourage the uptake.

She added: ''There is a massive problem - that maybe starts in schools - in which girls aren't necessarily encouraged to play more masculine instruments, aren't really encouraged to go into production, whereas men naturally fall into that path.''

And the 24-year-old singer - who is dating Anwar Hadid - thinks the way the music industry treats women is much different from how they treat men. Dua is fed up of seeing critics ''nitpick'' everything women do and believes if the same show was put on by a man, it would be critiqued completely differently.

She shared to the June issue of GQ magazine: ''I remember going to a show by ... a male artist that actually doesn't do anything on stage. And they got this stellar five star review.

''But then you have women who get up no stage and they're practically doing cartwheels, costume changes - it's a spectacle. And then [reviewers] nitpick every little thing.''

Read the full feature in the June issue of GQ available via digital download and on newsstands on Thursday May 7.