HuffPo drags Taylor swift

[Enhsa 2,043]

My first reaction to this was that I didn’t want it to happen. Wasn’t this the same woman who reinforced damsel-in-distress stereotypes with lyrics like, “Romeo, save me/I’ve been feeling so alone/I keep waiting for you but you never come...“ and slut-shamed other women with lines like, “She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress“? Was this not the same woman who implied, very incorrectly, that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were not *good feminist women* because they made a joke about Swift’s dating life at the 2013 Golden Globes?

But a little time passed and I thought, okay, maybe there’s something to Taylor Swift the Feminist (©Taylor Swift). For, whether or not they fully understand what the feminist movement was and is about, lots of young women are now unafraid to label themselves as feminists, and that’s good, right? Taylor saying she’s a feminist is destigmatizing feminism, and that’s something we need, yes?

Turns out, not really.** Because Taylor’s brand of feminism has very little to do with the actual political feminist movement. Furthermore, Taylor Swift the Feminist (©Taylor Swift) asks not what she can do for feminism, but what feminism can do for her.

To say all you need to do to be a feminist is be a working woman (a boss, even) with a large group of female friends is to not understand feminism at all. It is almost the same argument made for Sarah Palin’s brand of faux-feminism in 2008. Palin had ambitious goals and she worked for those goals, but Palin’s politics were not in line with feminism. She did not fight for equal pay, nor did she believe in a woman’s right to choose. She wasn’t asking for gender roles in society to be reexamined and for lines to be redrawn more in favor of women. She was simply a hardworking woman (maybe even a sexist one).

Unlike Dunham, Swift has not publicly supported funding Planned Parenthood, Hillary Clinton, the Equal Rights Amendment, or any other piece of feminist legislature. She privately showed support to Kesha financially for her ongoing trial against her abusive producer and record label, but Swift made no public statement regarding the state of women in the misogynistic music industry she claims to want to change so badly.

This is because Swift supports issues when she can benefit from supporting them. Swift has built an image around working with women (see: her model friends in the “Bad Blood” music video), but when she accepted the Grammy for Album of the Year earlier this year, there were no female producers with her on stage. Swift is all about female friendship, except when a woman has dated a man she also once dated, like Camilla Belle, Katy Perry, Demi Lovato, or Kendall Jenner — then the women are “buried,” as her ex Calvin Harris recently put it, for the benefit, seemingly, of Swift’s self-esteem.

Swift doesn’t like it when the media talks about her writing songs about her exes, yet she’s built an entire career on songs written about guys (and sometimes girls) she likes or dislike. Adele, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Lady GaGa, Lana Del Rey and Perry all currently write songs about their love interests and relationships, but none make a guessing game out of their songs like Swift does. Still, Swift is the only woman to cry “misogyny” when writing about relationships is brought up in the press — because it gets her more press.

But Taylor’s uproar about Kanye’s use of “bitch” dredges up something worse: Stereotypes of the scary, powerful, and dangerous black man attacking the innocent and unsuspecting white girl. It plays on a fear that’s been embedded in the white public’s mind by the media for centuries. That black man will attack you, that black man will hurt you. What we need to recognize now is that this white girl was not only in on the game from the beginning, but she actually tried to turn everything against the black man when the opportunity presented itself.

While we wait to see how Taylor Swift moves on, the best thing we can do as a society is remove feminism from this whole debacle. Swift isn’t in this position because she’s a woman or a feminist — she’s “buried” because she acted as an opportunist and it backfired. Now like any man in a similar situation, Swift can only “face the music” of her dishonesty, and see if the public is willing to forgive and forget or not. That’s true equality.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-bohanan/taylor-swift-and-the-bran_b_11101662.html

[Enhsa 2,043]

I spot no lies

[JustinTrudeau 2,419]

Exactly. I wish those who claim she's a feminist can look at her actions again. Her career is built on bringing down everyone around her, so she could be at the top. Why can't others see this?

[Stephen 30,432]

Damn Taylor is really cancelled  I was at a concert last week and the opener was a DJ. He started playing Shake it Off and everyone booed! He changed the song so fast asksjsjs  

[kabirartfling 9,063]

Someday, she will be living in a big'ol mansion and all your ever gonna be is mean

[ReidOne 12,427]

OMG the video at the end of the article!

 

[JustinTrudeau 2,419]

1 minute ago, kabirartfling said:

Someday, she will be living in a big'ol mansion and all your ever gonna be is mean

I thought she already live in a few mansions? 

[Lumi 3,512]

6 minutes ago, Enhsa said:

Unlike Dunham, Swift has not publicly supported funding Planned Parenthood, Hillary Clinton, the Equal Rights Amendment, or any other piece of feminist legislature.

I really dislike the fact that to be considered a "feminist" you need to do certain and specific tasks or otherwise you're a fake feminist, you seek attention or you're doing it for your own benefit. People don't need to be loud everytime with their opinions to prove they believe them, that doesn't make you fake, if anything it makes you insensitive / shy / insecure / careless. I don't believe Taylor is against equality but she clearly uses it as a shield / weapon. Other than that I completely agree on everything written on this article.

Except for this:

8 minutes ago, Enhsa said:

Lady GaGa

[BlondeQueenOfGGD 25,454]

3 minutes ago, kabirartfling said:

Someday, she will be living in a big'ol mansion and all your ever gonna be is mean

A person who lives in a crappy house is probably happier than a rich person living in a mansion

[JbGaga 2,261]

I fundamentally disagree with one size your either like my type of feminists or your not a feminist lines in some of this article. There is more to being a feminist  then voteing for clinton or supporting planed parenthood. It almost turns me off from any credibility in this article.  She was correct in saying how swift uses people and her double standard on how to treat people

[LePetitGAGABLover 21,234]

How. The amount of backlash is unreal

[JbGaga 2,261]

10 minutes ago, Jorget said:

I really dislike the fact that to be considered a "feminist" you need to do certain and specific tasks or otherwise you're a fake feminist, you seek attention or you're doing it for your own benefit. People don't need to be loud everytime with their opinions to prove they believe them, that doesn't make you fake, if anything it makes you insensitive / shy / insecure / careless. I don't believe Taylor is against equality but she clearly uses it as a shield / weapon. Other than that I completely agree on everything written on this article.

Except for this:

I just made the same point!

[MJHolland 12,725]

Good commentary until they implied that endorsing Hillary Clinton somehow gives you chops as a feminist 

[Sizzily 14,543]

Huffpost is a mess.

[ReidOne 12,427]

Here's the thing...

Taylor is not doing anything that your average celeb in LA isn't already doing --- she's just better at it. She's a master at marketing her personal life thru the tabloids AND her artistic output. But she's hardly the first to do this. Every trick she has pulled has been done hundreds of times before by the celebs who came before her. 

The difference is, I feel like Taylor forgot that she had to forge some REAL relationships along the way. You can't just barrel through Hollywood playing ONLY the media game. Case in point: assembling a trademark "squad" whose members seem to change fluidly. You have to have real relationships, too. Sure, as an artist who is actively marketing themselves, there is a time and place for using your relationship(s) to your advantage in the media (dare I say, similar to what we may be seeing with Gaga & Taylor now... I hate to cast doubt on Mother, but the cynic in me has to say the timing of this "break" is awful peculiar given we are on the eve of a new era of music... And asking us to "root us on" could be interpreted as laying it on a little too thick. But... Alas, isn't laying it on too thick precisely what we love Gaga for??)...

Anyway, I got off topic. Point is, Gaga can get away with stuff like this because it's out of character for her. You can't discern between the aspects of her life that are "for the media" vs. those that are real and genuine. 

With Taylor, you know its all fake. And there are countless accounts of people close to her (such as her tour team, etc...) who will tell you the same story. She's just not a genuine person. And the masses will eventually see through that.