đ€ feminism + taylor swift (an amendment to my last post!)
i'm so sick of running as fast as i can / wondering if i'd get there quicker / if i was the man
weâre so back ~~ day 3 of my 14 day writing challenge (to be fully transparent, iâm starting multiple drafts of pieces at different days and kind of picking them up and apart when i feel like it so weâll see when this ends up going out). today, i want to kind of expand on some of my thoughts that i articulated in my article about taylor swift from a couple of days ago.
before we start, i do have a song recommendation ;)
after i âpublishedâ that post (iâm quite literally broadcasting to two people, heyyyy X and R <33), one of my good friends and i had a good conversation about the double edged sword that taylor is kind of constantly under. that yes, sheâs kind of this product (and at times, perpetrator) of this musical, capitalist framework but that thereâs this double standard that often goes unnoticed (and i failed to capture in my last article!).
hereâs my attempt to take a look at that and reexamine taylorâs capitalist influences and political silence through a more feminist look. iâm still very unfamiliar with many of the big feminist schools of thought - simone de beauvoir, mary wollstonecraft and the other very passionate women that largely hold up the ideas that i believe in - and this may read as pretty fluffy/contemporary. with that disclaimer out of the way, letâs dive in!
the first thing to note is that swiftâs behavior - of pushing capitalist content and repackaging her album - is not new. in fact, in many of the articles i referenced before, theyâve been done by many of swiftâs peers, to different extents - billie eilish, zach bryan etc. for example, in the nytimes article i referenced, âTaylor Swift Breaks Her Own Record With a 12th Week at No. 1â, swift and bryan âunleash[ed] some chart-goosing weapons in the closing hours of the tracking period last week.â
whatâs interesting to note is that no oneâs pointing out bryan for that behavior or accusing him of the exact same thing that swift is doing. is it because zach bryan is no where near influential at the level swift is? (no offense, iâve never heard of bryan before). arbitrarily speaking, perhaps - heâs ranked #126 on Spotify, with only 33 million monthly listeners (which, again, is still A LOT). likewise, the very people that swift is âattemptingâ to best and constantly being compared to - the beatles, led zeppelin etc. - exhibit much of the same behavior (the beatlesâ ânow and thenâ came out in 2023, more than fifty years after their end. it debuted in the billboardâs top 10.). who doesnât want to remain on top of the charts?
i guess what iâm trying to say is that there are multiple ways to read this - to view swift as a capitalist phenomenon of marketing, exploiter of fans and power/chart hungry. another view is that well, everyone else is doing it, so why canât she? why call out swift if her male peers are doing the exact same thing? swift is arguably the most famous/powerful woman in the world (the others on this forbes list are all politicians/public servants) right now. are we only reexamining and scrutinizing swiftâs behavior because of her influence and power? what would happen if she were a smaller artist - would we remain silent, would she even dare? what if she were a man?
i also know of the recent controversy between Charli xcx and taylor via brat and TTPD on the charts - namely, how TTPD blocked brat from top spots on the charts. people have said that thatâs not very âgirlâs girlâ of her. iâm not completely sure how to read this to be honest - i do want to say that i donât agree with this intrinsically and i almost didnât add this part because it kind of contradicts what iâm saying above - but i think itâs a good idea to keep returning to the idea that you advocate for a lot of an artistâs actions while also not agreeing with everything theyâve done.
maybe this whole idea of music being - in todayâs day and age of spotify streams, commodification and consumerism - no longer just art, no longer just how the artistsâ music makes you feel, has become about is whatâs at fault.
music now, more than ever, is also about survival on the charts, units sold, followers, hard core numbers - influence and power measured in these statistical ways. so while someone can read the beatlesâ ânow and thenâ as a sentimental farewell, the last beatlesâ song, someone else can also point out the son as an effort to remain relevant, to continue to impact the current generation, to continue to net impact. because maybe music and its legacy is these two things - business and sentiment - intimately intertwined.
now on to the second topic i want to address - calling swift out for her lack of political action. after that conversation with my friend, i want to reevaluate how iâve thought of this issue too - namely, i feel like this need to look at female artists like swift, to be the moral compasses of our culture, to speak on all sorts of things big and small, stems from our collective cultural dialogue and recognition of women as nurturers, as the lights on the road that ensure we donât stray into the darkness. this is undoubtedly a historical and financial phenomenon - tied to the trad wife movement, christian values, and well, the patriarchy. after all, no oneâs really calling out the Weeknd, Drake, Kendrick Lamar (who has the top song on the Billboard 100 right now) to talk about worldly issues.
maybe this also has to do with the material of the music - swiftâs intimate details of past love affairs, her own stories of self hatred and making it out of that tunnel somewhat. as a result of these vulnerable details, we connect with her more (a good thing in my opinion and probably also a reason swiftâs fans are so passionate/eager to buy those very records) but also place more of a role on her - and other likeminded artists, of course, - to be able to take our traumas and guide us out of them. we place on these artists, these women specifically, the burdens of being moral lighthouses in the stormy sea of confusion, self hatred, political instability that many of us are in.
i can already think of an example of this - chappell roan and her rising fame has also meant that sheâs been subject to lots of trauma dumping at meet + greets, to the point that she wants to stop that experience. after all, she wants us to remember that sheâs human too, not just an entity that spins out relatable and catchy tunes. and while i think that music can be a means of coping - and being part of a larger community, even one as eye brow raising as the swifties - can be healthy and constructive for moving on past certain experiences, we canât depend on these artists - women especially - to guide us to some hope of the promise land. instead, we should be looking at the people weâve elected in office, the people in politics, in government, who are literally making these decisions to go to war, to bomb countries etc. and hold them accountable.
thatâs not to say that i donât believe in judging artists and their actions. thatâs also not to say that they arenât influential - they are and they deserve to be held to the same standard as the average person. whatever theyâve done and their political stances etc. deserve scrutiny and discussion. but i feel like redirecting some of that attention to the government, to politics, even to the media and the stories they choose to highlight, can be helpful.
in all honesty, i feel like this piece is even more confusing than my last - i agree with taylorâs actions and then i donât. i think iâm just using this space of writing to make sense of my thoughts, of piecing things together and seeing that well, iâm a pretty conflicted person, much like most of swiftâs actions. iâll see you tomorrow (for a bit of a break from taylor swift, donât worry). thank you for reading.
rambling 4 everrr,
Karen