Misogyny and the victimization of women can make us turn against our own.
I’ve seen a few variations of the same viral tweet that said being happy is doing all the things you loved in middle school without shame and as a hot girl. When Red, Taylor Swift’s fourth studio album, originally came out in 2012, I was in the sixth grade singing along to “I Knew You Were Trouble,” pretending to be heartbroken over the preteen twin heartthrobs in my class who barely knew me by name.
Now I’m 20, with real heartbreaks to musically lament, and I can’t help but wonder about my reluctance to like Taylor Swift after middle school. She was an uber-talented young girl breaking onto a male-dominated scene and staying there with consistent chart-toppers and high-grossing tours. Still, Taylor Swift, a young girl in the pop genre, was not synonymous with the musical “cool club” that boasted tortured musicians and legit artists from the “real genres” of rap, rock and indie. Taylor Swift and her simple four-chord guitar progressions was simply not cool, and by 16 I found myself scoffing at the mention of her name despite loving her childhood hits (some honorable mentions: “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me”).
On November 12, 2021, the Empire State Building lit up red, NASA shared photos of a red glowing galaxy and Taylor Swift fans around the globe anxiously awaited the release of Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version). In 2019, Big Machine Records was acquired by Ithaca Records — taking Swift’s first six albums with them. Then, in 2020, Swift’s masters were sold without her knowledge or permission, eliminating her opportunity to purchase her life’s work. While Taylor Swift is a publicized example, this is the upsetting reality for most artists. Even the Beatles didn’t own their work; it was bought by McCartney’s formerly close confidant, Michael Jackson (the shadiness halted the friendship).
Taylor Swift’s decision to re-record her masters allowed her to own recordings to her original songs, album by album. Culminated with her recent social hiatus to amend her scandal-clad image, it ended up being the best PR decision of her career. All this buzz around T-Swift seemed eerily reminiscent of excitement before highly anticipated blockbusters like Avengers Endgame or Twilight, a quality relatively unheard of in the music industry. Swift’s fans were eager to relive the emotions of her early works and hear her matured vocals and musical taste amplify old stories.
Taylor Swift has reached a level of success that is obvious and indisputable, and her achievements in the music industry have solidified her to legendary status. With her recent success and the red-colored black hole I was sucked down following the release of All Too Well: The Short Film, I began to examine where my Taylor Swift trepidation came from in the first place.
As a teenager, concerned with appealing to the patriarchal idea of a “cool girl,” Taylor Swift sulked off my radar and I vehemently denied having any affinity for her beyond a childhood lapse in judgment. Her music seemed simple, shallow and limited to her relationships with men. It wasn’t until my sophomore year in college that I started to respect some of her more muted masterpieces like “Better Man,” “Closure,” “Death By a Thousand Cuts,” and the intoxicatingly youthful naïveté of “Stay, Stay, Stay.”
Taylor Swift’s massive and consistent success made her the victim of a misogynistic media image that rewards calculated heartless plays by male stars as genius — yet demonizes women for daring to obtain the same level of money, success or fame. Swift had to achieve a much higher level of success to receive the same respect as her male counterparts. She was constantly ridiculed for her heart on her sleeve showmanship instead of rewarded for being a Mary Poppins bag of lyrics for the female romantic experience. Swift’s experience in the media serves as an uncomfortable metaphor for society’s tendency to undermine the eccentricities of women. There just seems to be this unshakeable desire to label womanly pursuits, specifically romantic triumphs and tribulations, as frivolous.
While there are, of course, some valid criticisms of her career and public persona, Swift is a once-in-a-generation kind of superstar. She managed to capture and maintain the public’s attention through her talent for songwriting, storytelling, beauty and dedication to her craft. Swift managed to capture the feelings and thoughts of young women in relationships — defining a genre and perhaps even unintentionally carving a path for girls to feel substantiated in their heartbreaks.
I’m sure many like me failed to recognize the influence of societal perceptions on their taste in music, but deciding to openly root for Taylor Swift has been a healing journey for me. I sincerely hope from her example we can all do better to recognize the microscopic victimization of successful women and be more forgiving of the next talented girl with a guitar.