Taylor Swift is a Feminist? Really?

Taylor Swift recently said announced that she is a feminist. In an interview with the Guardian, the pop singer said that her recent friendship with  the ‘Girls’ creator and actress, Lena Dunham, helped her see that she has been a feminist all along. But if this is true, why do all her songs and videos go against everything feminism believes in?

‘She’s not a saint
And she’s not what you think
She’s an actress, whoa
She’s better known
For the things that she does
On the mattress…’

These are lyrics from a song called ‘Better than Revenge’ by Swift. Like this, most of Taylor Swift’s songs have a ‘Bad girl’ as an antagonist, who is usually more sexual and has stolen/ seduced/ is dating Swift’s love interest. The issues I have with the portrayal of this antagonist would require three such blogs to discuss, so I won’t get into that. What is currently bothering me is how millions of young girls, who worship the teen sensation, are going to see Feminism.

“As a teenager, I didn’t understand that saying you’re a feminist is just saying that you hope women and men will have equal rights and equal opportunities. What it seemed to me, the way it was phrased in culture, society, was that you hate men. Becoming friends with Lena… has made me realize that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so,” said Swift.

If I heard a stranger or an acquaintance say this, it wouldn’t have bothered me. I think it’s great that someone who hasn’t faced any gender disparity growing up realizes that taking a firm public stand on the equality issue is important. Yet, most of Swift’s songs have this virgin-whore dichotomy that favours the ‘geeky’ girl who is probably saving herself, and puts down the more sexualized, better dressed and more confident ‘other’ girl.  Except one video, where Swift portrayed both, she is always the former girl, who now says, she is a feminist. Honestly, this scares me.

I think an artist has the full right to choose what they want to write/sing about, but someone as influential as her, also has a certain amount of social responsibility. I’m scared that young girls, who idolize Swift, would grow up rejecting exactly what feminists have been fighting against- the freedom to choose. If you keep reinforcing the concept of the ideal girl and the immoral girl- what space would be left for individual expression?

I grew up in a town in Uttar Pradesh, watching TV shows that worked almost similarly and I can’t even imagine what sort of a person I would’ve become if I hadn’t discovered Star World. Don’t get me wrong, I am not someone who hates everything-Indian and loves everything-American, but if you have watched any of the Hindi running shows on TV, you would know what I am talking about.

So coming back to my original point, I think, the impact artists like Swift can have by taking a stand on feminism, could be huge; compared other feminist stars like Dunham and Tina Fey (whose fans are mostly mature women who already share their ideals.) But I also hope she understands that the equality in question here is not just between men and women.