Whenever I tell people I’m a Swiftie, most of the time I’m met with dirty looks and snide remarks of why THEY don’t like Taylor Swift.
The award-winning singer, songwriter, guitar and piano player, actress, and best friend to the world, Taylor Swift has added one more adjective to her persona: feminist. With the release of her 1989 CD (she even made Billboard 200 history!), more and more people are convinced that the girl who “used to write sad songs about all of her break-ups” now writes about the importance of finding who you are and loving yourself before loving somebody else. Some of these songs are “Welcome to New York” and “Clean.” She has also made several attempts to alert the media of the effect they have had and now have upon who she is, such as “Mean” (from Speak Now) and “Shake It Off.”
Aside from embracing her sexuality and writing songs about her current state of mind, Taylor says that she has always been a feminist, but becoming friends with Lena Dunham has helped her polish her true feminist self. She says her parents always taught her that genders didn’t really exist and if she wanted to succeed, she needed to work hard for what she wanted. She often questions why is it that a man who expresses his feelings in songs is applauded and a woman who does it, like her, is labeled as spiteful and whiny? She also questions why a man can date as many women as he wants and is called a hunk, but when a woman dates several men in a span of eight years (she speaks of herself, obviously) she is labeled as a…in better terms, a prostitute? She used one of her latest single’s video “Blank Space” to satirize this perspective, as planted by the media, of herself.
She has also, recently, broken gender stereotypes and has given importance to her relationship with friends. She also has stated several times she is not looking and is not interested to slip into a relationship with someone who will just tell her she’s pretty.
Taylor Swift has not become a man hater as most people might say, but rather she has taught us that to love another, you have to love yourself. Until that happens, we won’t be able to fully appreciate the other person. And shake off the haters!