Taylor Swift was my first introduction to community joy and bonding, and my first introduction to misogyny. I was 5 years old when she released her second studio album, Fearless, and I’ve been hooked since my childhood best friend showed me the You Belong With Me music video. My non-Swiftie friend recently joked that liking Taylor Swift is a lifestyle, and I’ve come to realize they are completely right. Who would I be if I wasn’t a Taylor Swift fan? I’m not sure.
The first time I encountered misogyny, it was directed at Taylor Swift. As a pre-teen, a day wouldn’t go by without a tabloid blowing up unethically taken pictures of her, turning each gram of fat on her body into pregnancy rumors, stalking her and her home, commenting on her boyfriends, and raising the bar every single time she cleared the last one.
When the pre-Reputation drama began, I was in middle school, watching the Trump era unfold and feeling scared and confused by these sentiments I’d never heard before. As both journalists and Twitter trolls alike mocked Taylor Swift, we saw a nationwide upswing in violent hatred for women and members of marginalized communities. Taylor Swift and other female celebrities, especially those who spoke out during the early days of the mainstream #MeToo era, were turned into symbols upon which many men projected their anxiety, rage, and feelings of impotence in the face of social change.
How do young women cope with daily life when they spend years hearing violence disguised as jokes (or sometimes not disguised at all), and watching their heroes be degraded in the public eye simply because they are women? Their gender is seen as something to atone for. They believe that they are never enough, weak, and annoying, simply because these traits seem to define how many people see femininity. If you’re like me, you try to fit in at all costs, appealing to those who will never respect you, colluding in sexist jokes, and slowly inching towards the conclusion that all of this has been pointless. You won’t change the minds of bigots no matter what you do; in fact, your best attempts will only make things worse.
I can analyze the gender politics of Taylor Swift and the post-#MeToo era all day, but for this summer I put down the negativity and just felt it.
I went to the Eras Tour dressed like the Lover era. I sobbed my eyes out in front of 70,000 people as I screamed the lyrics to songs I used to dance around my room to as a kid, thinking that in the moment I could relate to them, I would truly be an adult. I considered every age I’d ever been and ever will be—13, 15, 22. I crafted hundreds of friendship bracelets and I approached total strangers. When trading bracelets and complimenting strangers, it’s possible I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin.
Earlier this year, I met one of my best friends in the world at a Taylor Swift listening event. We stayed connected across hundreds of miles this summer when every time Surprise Song O’clock rolled around, we came together to laugh, cry, and freak out.
This summer has been dubbed the summer of girlhood, and I don’t disagree with the label. I think this exhalation of the idea of girlhood comes from the collective exhaustion of the past three years in particular. It took only a few months of pandemic living to realize that none of our governing bodies function with peoples’ best interests at heart, and they have no interest in changing. Prices are surging, the deck is stacked against the majority of people, and many of us feel alone and powerless. While I’m not suggesting that Taylor Swift or the Barbie movie can fix late stage capitalism—especially as they both operate firmly within that system—both have provided a space for catharsis and community we have been sorely lacking.
Additionally, Taylor Swift has made issues of gender disparity accessible to a vast audience. Throughout her career, Taylor has made it clear that the scrutinizing of her success, the critique of her dating life, and the double standards applied to all of her decisions come back to patriarchal gender roles, and she has exposed these ideas to a huge fanbase of young people. Her feminism can certainly be questioned in many different ways, but the power of accessibility is remarkable, as is the way she chose to take her years of misogynistic abuse and both create joy from it and call misogyny out by name.
And then there’s the sheer fun of being a Taylor Swift fan. The music. The looking for clues. The years of lore that lead to inside jokes that lead to concert outfits. There’s the spectacle of the show itself, a glittery three-hour romp through her discography from almost-beginning to end (justice for her debut album).
I spend a lot of time inside and outside the classroom analyzing the misogyny I’ve been exposed to, trying to make sense of it, write about it, and ultimately overcome just how painful it is to be a person under the patriarchy. No matter how much I intellectualize it, my dominant emotions on the topic are sadness, rage, and powerlessness.
But for a few hours this summer, I sat side-by-side my 5-year-old self, the one who didn’t know any of this yet, but loved dancing around the kitchen to Love Story and Picture to Burn. I watched a crowd of 70,000 do the same thing, taking stock of their lives, the things that had brought them pain and the joy we so often don’t get to express. I saw just how much I’ve changed in the 15 years since I became a Taylor Swift fan, but that simple, childhood joy lives on inside all of us.
It’s been one of the most joyous and transformative summers of my life, and I can honestly say no one understands transformation (and reputations) quite like Taylor Swift.