by Is Newsweek OK? The magazine has just published an article explaining why ‘Taylor Swift is not a good role model’, and the argument for it – and this is a direct quote – comes from the fact that “at 34, Swift is still single and childless. ” A spinster, if you will.
Excuse me, I just reset my phone calendar from 2024 to 1954.
The article was written by a man – those famous experts on good female role models – who, having dated “at least a dozen men”, insists that the singer is not “wholesome” enough to set an example. Basically, she’s a slut. I haven’t checked yet, but I assume there is also a free belt with each edition,
“While Swift’s musical talents and business acumen are admirable, even commendable, we have to ask whether her personal life choices are ones we want our sisters and daughters to emulate,” writes John MacGlynn, unsurprisingly Andrew Tate is a pseudonym. .Phew. Thank God someone finally said it. After all, what sane person would want their daughter or sister to be a strong, independent, successful woman who doesn’t feel pressured to get married by 34? Who gave UK food banks enough money to cover their bills for a whole year? Heaven forbid!
As role models go (and being on a pedestal is a tough gig) she’s making a mark: standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, taking a man who groped her to court and winning, boycotting Apple Music until until he agreed to pay royalties to all the artists during. the platform’s trial period, refusing to take control of re-recording her own albums when she was denied the chance to buy the rights herself, speaking honestly about her eating disorder, criticizing bullying, admitting that she was so insecure about female friendship with the rest of us. If that can’t be filed under “healthy”, what can?
“This is not an attack on Swift; it’s a valid question worth asking,” continues the self-appointed arbiter of women’s behavior (funny because it’s always men who jump to take on that role). “This cycle of brief, intense relationships can unintentionally glamorize a kind of romantic clarity where partners can be replaced as easily as toilet paper.”
Which, funnily enough, is exactly how I want to use this so-called outdated offensive piece.
It posits the worthiness of women in terms of their duties to men and takes us back to an era where we were little more than walking.
Some people called it desperate. I would say dangerous. Claiming that Swift’s power as a role model is diminished by those medieval metrics is pure misogyny. It posits the worthiness of women in terms of their duties to men and takes us back to an era where we were little more than walking.
All together now: under his eye.
Claiming that Swift’s power as a role model is diminished by those medieval metrics is pure misogyny.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that we still live in an age where men can publicly chastise women for not being tied up in the kitchen. After all, it was only in May that NFL player Harrison Butker gave his famous speech, to a room full of female graduates, telling them to embrace being ‘homemakers’ and that their most important role was to be in her mother. Leave the man to earn money, there is a good girl.
As a harpist who dreaded some boyfriends in her 20s and 30s, and was “single and childless” at 34, I’m going to go out on a limb anyway and say that domestic bliss isn’t the only happy- ever. -after we should be selling young women. And it’s something women are specifically told they should aspire to. Maybe I’m missing something, and Newsweek is currently putting together an article about why Harry Styles is a terrible role model for young boys for exactly those reasons. But, somehow, I can’t quite see it.
And no doubt if Swift had been married with children, she would have been criticized for leaving her family at home while she selfishly went on tour and accused her husband of being a money maker.
The whole thing comes from the same playbook that makes Swift fans gag because they’re in the grip of some Victorian hysteria; irrational and shallow. Those who consider themselves culturally ‘good enough’ see their music as ‘good enough’, in the same way that women’s romantic literature is written off as ‘chick lit’. Misogyny is hidden behind having ‘good taste’, just like the Newsweek article misogyny masquerading concerns about the loss of some old-fashioned moral code.
Look, I’m sure Taylor isn’t exactly crying over this drive counting the billion dollars she made from the Eras tour. But she and her fans deserve better than this regressive rubbish. Because I can’t think of anything more “wholesome” than bringing thousands of women and girls together every night, united in joy, to sing songs about not settling for a life that makes you unhappy.
Isn’t Taylor Swift a good role model? She’s bloody amazing.
