This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Wilfrid Laurier chapter.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the author’s own. If you have anything you’d like to debate, sorry, you can’t. Periodt.

Popularized for writing songs about her exes, Taylor Swift is an icon regardless of what you may think. Not only is she a great role model, she is also an extraordinary person and no lame man like Kanye is going to take that away from her.

In their proclaimed feud, Taylor Swift and Kanye West’s reputations have taken several hits. Taylor Swift, as we see in her documentary Miss Americana, was greatly impacted. If you haven’t seen Miss Americana yet, then go do that right now! It’s on Netflix, for crying out loud.

The story of this drama starts in 2009 when Mr. West jumped on stage as Taylor was accepting her first VMA ever and started to shift the attention to Beyoncé’s “greatest music video of all time.” The alleged Queen B sat there in what looked like shock and/or surprise at Kanye’s actions. The overrated star did give up her acceptance speech to Taylor later on during the award show and expressed her shock in interviews after the event. It is also reported that Beyoncé was brought to tears because of what Kanye did that night.

In Kanye’s defense and later withdrawn apology, he claims that his behaviour was driven by his passion for culture. He believed that Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies’ music video had more of a cultural impact than Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me.” If I’m being totally honest with you, I have never listened to a single Beyoncé song growing up and I’m not going to start now. I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift since her Fearless days. Regardless of what Kanye thought of how deserving Swift was of the award, it was still pretty rude of him to take away the moment of a lifetime from then 20-year-old Taylor Swift.

To back her husband up, Kim K released edited videos of West’s phone call with Taylor. In the newly leaked 25-minute video, Kanye does not ask Taylor for permission for the line “I made that bitch famous” from his song “Famous.” He was meekly asking for permission to include lines in his song while leaving out the fact that he would be calling her a bitch. In the video, you can hear the nervousness in Taylor’s responses and how she was afraid he was going to call her a “stupid dumb bitch” in the song but was relieved to hear otherwise. Though Kanye does ask for permission for the line “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex,” his permission for calling her a bitch is nowhere to be heard. Taylor even expressed her fear over being called a bitch yet, the Wests decided that it was okay to go ahead with their plans given the note at which the call ended.

Here’s the thing; Kanye was suggesting the “sex” line in his song was the more controversial piece and Taylor did warn him of feminist backlash. She even said it was funny, but she was clearly worried about being called a bitch in the music. Kanye heard this and still neglected to mention or ask for permission to call her that in his song as well.

In this whole drama created by Kimye and their compulsive behaviour, Taylor Swift had to bear the brunt of the incredibly unwarranted backlash. The internet decided to “cancel” her and the poor woman decided to lay low for a long time. In her documentary, Taylor explains how tremendously deteriorating to her well-being this incident was for her. I believe I cannot do her story justice, so I implore you, please watch it.

Kanye West repeatedly shows how misogynistic he is from time to time. From his controlling behaviour towards his wife and daughter, he has made it clear that in this day and age, he’s as backwards as he is popular. Or should I say famous.

Tay-Tay is powerful, iconic and a motivating role for every female out there and there is no way Kanye is going to take that away from her. Even if she isn’t a man, she definitely is the man.