As is the case with many celebrities, Taylor Swift is a problematic favorite. Her girl power attitude and her success in the music industry is very inspiring. She has done awesome things like openly supporting Kesha and speaking out against haters (We’re looking at you, Kanye). But while cases like these point to Taylor being a feminist, she falls short in many ways, displaying what is known as White Feminism.
White Feminism is feminism that assumes that white, heterosexual women are the norm and almost exclusively deals with issues that only relate to those kind of women. White Feminism lacks diversity and intersectionality (aka: the interconnectedness and overlapping of all aspects of life like race, class and gender). Taylor seems to only support feminist issues that relate to her alone, ignoring the oppression of others. While there are many examples of this, here are a few specific instances of Tay-Sway’s White Feminism:
1) The Nicki Feud
If you weren’t living under a large rock in 2015, you heard about the Twitter beef between Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift. In a nutshell, Nicki started tweeting about the lack of diversity- both as pertains to race and body positivity- in the music industry, saying that “if your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year.” Taylor responded, assuming Nicki was referencing her, and called Nicki out for pitting women against each other. The entire incident was a mess, but something that can be taken away from it is Taylor’s reaction. She never sided with Nicki in the fight for diversity in the music industry and instead profits from it. Instead of validating this very real issue of diversity, Taylor chose to only defend herself. Part of feminism is recognizing one’s own privilege.
2) Pulling Music and Threatening Fans
Taylor is a huge advocate for artist integrity and protecting artists, which is great. Everyone deserves to be paid for their hard work; that is not in question. However it is possible that Taylor has taken it too far. Taylor pulled all of her music from Spotify in 2014. Unless you get Premium, Spotify is a free platform for music and Taylor felt that her work should not be free. This argument seems valid except that Spotify puts much of their revenue back into the music community. Pulling her music from free, reliable platforms like Spotify takes her music away from people who may not be able to pay for her albums and concert tickets, completely ignoring fans she may have who are members of a lower-class. Taylor took this demand for payment further when she threatened her Etsy fans. Taylor Swift fans were creating various paraphernalia with lyrics from Taylor’s songs and selling them on Etsy. Despite the fact that these fans were barely making profit and it was a relatively small amount of products being sold, Taylor Swift’s lawyers threatened these fans with legal action, claiming the paraphernalia was “trademark infringement.” It is understandable that Taylor would want to protect her label and receive the payment she deserves for her work. However, she is not a struggling artist. She is not poor. People enjoying some of her music for free or selling a few t-shirts is not going to disrupt her success or income. Once again, one can see Taylor Swift only taking part in issues that affect her, as well as ignoring class division.
3) Possible Appropriation
Last but not least, there is the problem with Taylor’s controversial Wildest Dreams music video. Many have accused Taylor of appropriation and romanticism of colonialization in this video. Firstly, the video, which is implied to take place in Africa, lacks any POC. Secondly, the depiction of romantic imperialism is a problem for many. Zoe Samudzi described the video as “the romanticization of an era of white domination because of beautiful aesthetic” and “the literal use of black Africanness as a cultural aesthetic sans the employment of black bodies who created and deeply embody them.” While the video was well made and beautiful, this controversy cannot be ignored.
Despite being a successful woman and the role model of many, Taylor Swift’s White Feminism cannot be ignored. Her accomplishments should not be undermined but, until she displays intersectionality, she will be a problematic fave for many.