BUT HERE’S THE THING THIS MISSES
Taylor Swift used to be one of the women who rejected the term feminist. When she was asked in 2012 if she considered herself a feminist, her answer was “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.” (Source)
Now that she’s openly calling herself a feminist, she’s said multiple times that she didn’t in the past because she didn’t understand what the term really meant. For example, here’s what she told The Guardian in 2014:
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. And now, I think a lot of girls have had a feminist awakening because they understand what the word means.
And she said it again on an interview on The View:
I was never really taught the definition of feminism when I was a little girl, and I wish I had been.
In fact, that’s exactly what she’s saying in the interview that gif is from. Here’s the full context of what she was saying (she was talking about Emma Watson’s UN speech):
Taylor Swift didn’t call herself a feminist for years because she didn’t properly understand the term. So don’t you dare frame this as “Oh, Taylor Swift is better than all these other women because she understands feminism”, because guess what? Until the last year or so that wasn’t true.
When Taylor Swift talks about feminism, what she’s stressed over and over is that so many women don’t call themselves feminists because they don’t understand what feminism really is. Just like she used to be. And when I look at those quotes up there? That’s exactly what I see. None of those women are saying they don’t believe in equal rights for women. But they think of feminism as having a “negative connotation,” as meaning you’re aggressive or unpleasant (”Get out of my way. I don’t need anyone.”), as being “a word that discriminates”. They haven’t been taught what feminism really is. And maybe once they understand better they still won’t be feminists, but at this point the rejection clearly isn’t coming from a place of real knowledge. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, from a society that’s conditioned them to see feminism in a negative light.
The answer here isn’t to shame women who reject feminism because they don’t understand it. The answer is to spread awareness and education so that more women will gain a better understanding of feminism. And I guarantee you that’s what Taylor Swift would tell you to do (and has said, repeatedly), instead of holding her up as a special snowflake who is Better Than The Other Girls. She’s not. She used to be just like them. Now, to her credit, she is better educated and was humble enough to admit she was wrong. That’s the message we need to be taking away from this. Humans grow. They change. People are not born Perfect Feminists TM. Give them a chance.
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