Over the course of her nineteen-year career, pop star Taylor Swift has garnered the reputation of an astute feminist, with many deeming her a modern-day face of the movement. In 2014, she proudly labelled herself a feminist, claiming to have had a personal “feminist awakening” in which she felt she truly understood feminism as “women and men having equal rights and opportunities”. She then went on to write songs her largely female audience deemed empowering, such as The Man, where she called out gender-based double standards. This branding was reinforced by mainstream media outlets, with writer Jennifer Stewart even calling her “the feminist of our generation” in a piece published for The Honest Talk. For a large percentage of her “Swiftie” fanbase, their love for Swift is intrinsically tied to their identity as women and as feminists. Journalist Nikki Natividad explained in her 2023 Vice article that “Going Through the Eras with Taylor Swift Led to My Feminist Awakening”. For some Swifties, this connection runs so deeply that disliking Swift’s music is often treated as an attack on women themselves. Many feel as though she captures the experience of being a woman through her depictions of heartbreak, rage and revenge, making her a mouthpiece for women worldwide. However, whether female relatability necessarily equates to female empowerment is far from clear. Just because she writes relatable breakup songs doesn’t exactly make her the next Mary Wollstonecraft.Â
The idea of placing a pop star at the centre of modern-day feminism is extremely flawed and, dare I say, somewhat foolish. On the surface alone, one woman cannot be the face of feminism. Women’s issues and experiences are far too complex, diverse and intersectional to be confined to the mixtape of a middle-aged white billionaire whom most of us will never even meet. The public disappointment that followed Swift’s relationship with Matty Healy, who has been accused of racist behaviour, illustrates this clearly. When you project moral and ethical expectations onto a stranger you do not know, rather than holding those standards within yourself, disappointment is inevitable, which is precisely why no single woman could ever be the face of a global feminist movement.Â
It is an insult to the everyday woman to imply that Swift could reflect or represent all of our struggles. This implication reduces a genuine political movement to celebrity branding, turning feminism into a marketing tool that profits from the parasocial attachment of fans while producing minimal meaningful change or commentary. Digging deeper, Taylor’s supposed feminism is also highly debatable. In some of her earlier works, such as Bad Blood, she presented a kind of “me vs her” dynamic while singing about the other woman in her man’s life. While relatable for many, it can be argued that this sense of competitiveness between women undermines the unity that true feminism aims to achieve. Furthermore, in her most recent work, some listeners interpreted certain lyrics as shading other Black female artists in the music industry, as well as her fiancé’s ex Kayla Nicole, although this is yet to be confirmed by Taylor herself. What can be confirmed is that many of her albums have centred almost entirely on men. If these songs are to be viewed as revolutionary feminist statements, then we risk sounding incredibly first world and detached from real life.Â
This leads us to the core issue with what many call “Taylor Swift feminism” or “white feminism”. As Sara Weinstein explains in her article Taylor Swift’s Feminism is Death by a Thousand Cuts, “white feminism prioritizes white, cisgender, straight, able-bodied, thin and upper-class women and assumes that uplifting white women will uplift all women.” It completely centres a westernised, first world, white female experience. Taylor Swift embodies feminism only when it pertains to herself; however, she has shown limited engagement with the issues faced by women in other countries that are arguably far more severe, such as female genital mutilation, honour killings and child marriage. While Taylor is by no means obligated to speak about every problem affecting women across the world, nor does her silence necessarily mean she does not care, it is important that any feminist put on a pedestal as a spokesperson is someone who speaks about issues beyond herself. This mirrors a much larger issue within the movement itself, whereby intersectionality is neglected and the pressing concerns of women who do not fit a certain binary are completely disregarded. Historically, the experiences of upper-class white women were often the only ones taken seriously, hence the coining of the term “womanism”, a form of feminism created to include the voices and experiences of marginalised women. This pattern repeats itself when a wealthy white celebrity is positioned as a feminist authority.Â
Whilst this article is not intended to put down Taylor Swift or her work – she is entitled to write as many breakup songs as she pleases, and she is not obligated to speak on every global issue affecting women. However, it is harmful, ignorant and borderline insensitive to suggest that the experience of your favourite heartbreak singer could possibly encapsulate a movement intended to free women from patriarchy worldwide.Â