By MELISSA WELLHAM
The internet has just delivered us the phenomenal and ass-kicking gift of Feminist Taylor Swift.
And she’s taking it all on: the gender pay gap, the patriarchy and calling out sexism wherever she sees it.
The real Taylor Swift reportedly doesn’t consider herself a feminist, but that hasn’t stop a student at Brown University – Clara Beyer – from creating the Twitter account, which gained a massive 50,700+ followers in just a few days. With only 48 tweets. That’s not bad, for a feminiswift.
Beyer tweets Swift song lyrics from the account – but lyrics that have been reworked to address feminist issues. Such as, “I don’t know about you / but I’m feeling twenty-two / cents underpaid per dollar.” And, “It’s been true all along, so why can’t you see-ee-ee / Gender isn’t necessarily a binary-y-y / Not a binary.”
The real Taylor Swift’s twitter bio reads “Happy. Free. Confused. Lonely. At the same time” – a lyric from one of Swift’s hit songs 22. Feminist Taylor Swift’s twitter bio is much more amusing: “Happy. Free. Confused. Oppressed by the patriarchy. At the same time.”
Click through the gallery below for more tweets.
While Taylor Swift’s lyrics have quite a “girl power!” message, they are – dare we say it – also fairly conventional. Swift certainly isn’t pushing a radical agenda, of any description. In her early days, Swift also copped a fair bit of criticism for seemingly being the physical embodiment of female innocence and purity, and managing to diss other women who expressed their sexuality.
For example, in Swift’s You Belong With Me, she sings, “But she wears short skirts / I wear T-shirts” as a reason why the object of Swift’s affection shouldn’t be with his current paramour. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s not cool to judge a woman on the length of her skirt, Taylor?
As Feminist Taylor Swift points out, “She wears high heels / I wear sneakers / We’re each expressing our gender identities in ways that make us feel comfortable / Date me.”
By Taylor Swift’s own admission, she has never set out to empower women. When Ramin Setoodeh interviewed Swift for The Daily Beast, he asked, “Do you consider yourself a feminist?”
Swift replied that, “I don’t really think about things as guys versus girls. I never have. I was raised by parents who brought me up to think if you work as hard as guys, you can go far in life.”
Which was as clever a way of not really answering the question as any.
But whether she intended to inspire other girls or not, Swift has certainly succeeded – and she is undoubtedly a powerful woman in the music industry. Her fourth album Red sold millions. Her single We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together set a record for digital sales.
The Feminist Taylor Swift account creator, Beyer told BuzzFeed that, “I consider myself a feminist, and I blog about that kind of thing all the time, but I also LOVE Taylor Swift … Being a feminist Taylor Swift fan isn’t always easy, but it led to @FeministTSwift, so I’m not really complaining.”
Beyer also told BuzzFeed, “My fantasy is that this Twitter account gets so many followers that she tweets at us.”
Want to lend Beyer a hand? Check out the Feminist Taylor Swift account here.
What feminist mash-up would you like to see?
Top Comments
Oh, FFS !! ..... leave the girl alone.
Why oh why do we have to label EVERYONE ??
- now here's a thought : how about we try to just "be" ? (outrageous, I know )
Geez, Taylor can't win.
Here she is, one of the few recording artists out there who sing music and produce videos that are actually suitable for the people buying them and she gets called out for not wanting to identify as a feminist. Surely that's her perogative?
If she were to state publicly that she is a feminist then every bloody rabid and not so rabid feminist groups/individuals would be sitting in wait for her to slip up.
Give her a break. She's incredibly successful in a field that is is choc full of naked writhing bodies, sexist videos and disgusting lyrics. I think she is modeling feminist ideals. She's getting on with it instead of sitting around whinging about it.
And the person who is getting a name for themselves by trying to make Taylor look bad..shame on you. Get your own gig.