I believe in intersectional feminism, but I still listen to Taylor Swift…
Does that make me a bad feminist?
I first fell in love with Taylor Swift’s music back when I was 10 years old and didn’t know any better. It’s easy to defend my younger self for being so enamored with this female artist who sang about love, relationships, and heartbreak. Yet as I’ve grown up, I’ve found myself more and more reluctant to acknowledge my interest in her and her music.
At first I found it easy to write it off as the media targeting Taylor, reluctant to acknowledge that a woman had as much right to write about her relationships with men, as men did in their songs (looking at you Ed Sheeran). I now recognize that I had fallen into the idea of white feminism, where the man is somehow always the problem. It’s the man who makes it impossible for women to achieve success.
I never thought of ethnicity, race, or social class playing into the disparity, until I saw the graphic of the gender pay gap among women broke down by ethnicity:
As someone who identifies as Latina, I was troubled to learn that women like me are the ones who make the least compared to non-Hispanic men, i.e. cis-gendered, able-bodied, and presumably Caucasian. This revelation happened around 2012, when I was a freshman in high school, struggling to find out where I fit in the world. It was a bit of a wake-up call, one that would take a little longer to sink in.
Flash forward to 2014, when Taylor Swift released her “1989” album, that cemented her transition into the pop genre and catapulted her into a place of immense power, with the spotlight shining brightly on her. With so much media attention on her, it became difficult to ignore Taylor’s version of feminism, one that blatantly played into the idea of pitting women against one another as exemplified by her “feud” with Nicki Minaj. Taylor didn’t and most likely still hasn’t recognized her privilege as a white female. She can’t understand the stereotypes projected onto black women nor those given to immigrant women who clean other people’s houses. She doesn’t take the time to understand that it isn’t about women vs. women, or about women vs. men. but that there is a system in place that allows people who look like her to achieve more in society, one that oppresses those who don’t pass as white or don’t speak English, or just don’t fit into “American standards”. She assumed that Nicki’s tweet targeted her, and not the MTV network, and even if Nicki had targeted her, Taylor would have still been in the wrong. The experiences of Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift are vastly different because of the color of their skin and Taylor’s lack of acknowledgement towards this racial problem is problematic. She has such a big platform that could be used towards raising attention to this, but instead she remains silent. This refusal to speak out is something that makes me feel uncomfortable and alienated from her.
Increasingly, in this day and age, I feel inclined to rid myself of any sign of liking Taylor Swift and her music, especially when even her music shows signs of being problematic and falling under her idea of white feminism. It’s hard to sing along to “Blank Space” and not recognize that Taylor is perpetuating the idea that when women incite violence against men, it isn’t as demeaning as when the opposite occurs. She plays into the patriarchal violence that bell hooks proclaims must be defeated, the one that sexist women and men both partake in. I feel like saying I enjoy her music leads many to the assumption that I agree with Taylor’s silence and her “feminism”. I don’t, but how can I justify knowing all the words to most of her songs while maintaining the idea that I’m an intersectional feminist?
Is it wrong for me to still listen to her music?
Now that I’m older than I was when I first started listening to her music and aware of her shortcomings? I can’t turn a blind eye anymore. I can’t just pretend like one day she’ll wake up and become what I want her to be: more mindful and aware of her privilege, of the differences among white women and black women and brown women and asian women, the different problems each deals with. Yet this is hardly realistic, especially when in the past year Taylor was silent about the 2016 election, one that as a “feminist” she should have been all about, especially considering what was and is at stake now that Donald Trump is our president.
I know that what I want to hear is that no, it doesn’t make me problematic. That it’s possible to listen to an artist and not have to agree with his/her messages. Maybe I should shake it off (ha) and not worry about whether I’m a “good” or “bad” feminist. I can’t though and the root of is, I’m not that 10 year old girl anymore. I’m no longer unaware nor ignorant.
The fact is white women need to be held more accountable than ever, when 53% of white women voted for Trump, they need to show up for all issues, from the Black Lives Matter movement to Planned Parenthood defunding to an immigration policy that is blatantly rooted in racism . It feels a bit extreme to project this onto just Taylor Swift, but she’s the one whose music I’ve been listening to since elementary school. She can’t hide behind her white feminism anymore and I can no longer help her until she recognizes it.Taylor Swift needs to really show up, and until then maybe I need to go on a break from this 9 year relationship.
