What Pretty Girls Can Do
Taylor Swift Got Me
Darling,
I want you to know that I did the thing that a lot of people do. For a long time I did the thing.
Do you do it, too?
I took my own misogyny and disdain for the feminine out on Taylor Swift.
I did it years ago. I have since wisened up.
Here’s why I did that nasty thing of disdaining feminine energy and feminine success. It did it because was easy. I did it because it was a trend. I did it because it was automatic. I did it because I wasn’t listening.
Taylor Swift—as I saw her—was a pretty blonde with a big smile and perfect teeth. Thin and tall and talented. Who did she think she was, thinking she mattered? Who was this young woman whose parents loved her so much that they moved to Nashville so she could start a music career? Who did she think she was, trying to rise up through the ranks of the music industry and get my buy-in?
She was just for tweens anyway, right? Getting teens to like you can’t be that big of a thing. Teen girls don’t know much, do they? Do they even have any taste? They just jump on bandwagons. Right?
Jeez, those terribly problematic academic assumptions I used to make.
I knew music enough, and I loved music, and back when Taylor was starting to rise, I was not going to stoop to listening. The playlists I made in my suburban home included Damien Rice and Nada Surf and Arcade Fire.
And then my daughter Maddie and my son Ben started to like Taylor Swift, years ago, when she came out with the album 1989. “Shake it off” was popular on the local radio stations, which I still listened to from time to time. The kids wanted those stations on in the car.
I didn’t like “Shake It Off,” in theory. And yet it was catchy.
The players gonna play play play play play
and the haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate
I’m just gonna shake shake shake shake shake
Shake it off, shake it off.
There was value in shaking things off, I pondered. I’d had some situations in life where people had hated me for no reason. There was no need to hold on to that junk. I could shake it off. Let it fall away.
Maybe just to support my children’s musical interests, I bought 1989 at the local Starbucks. They sold a few cds at the counter. (We suburban moms still listened to CDs back then.)
Ooh, I liked this 1989 album. There was “Welcome to New York” and “Style” and “Bad Blood” and “Clean.”
Darn, I kept thinking. This album is really good. It had something vintage and new all at the same time. I couldn’t help myself. It was music the whole family enjoyed!
I was going through a divorce. It was 2015. I was driving a silver minivan, taking my two older kids to their Quaker school. I was caring for an infant during the day. I was bopping to Taylor’s songs in the car. Navigating dating apps. Imagining a new life for myself. In the grocery store, buying the American cheese, I began thinking about the song “Bad Blood.” I’d get back in the minivan, listen more, pass the local church, get a call from my new boyfriend. Was I a mom or a woman? Could I be both? What would life behold? Taylor’s album was about break-ups and new love. Endings and beginnings. What it means to love men and yourself. What it means to overcome. Wanting love regardless of the pitfalls. Finding the right color lipstick for a new era.
The album 1989 became a really important to me. It made me give in and dance. Intellectual superiority only gets one so far, and then life floods in to show there are bigger forces in the world. I’d been Valedictorian of my college graduating class. I’d created a literary journal. I’d published fiction. I’d gotten a master’s degree, owned a home, had three babies, taught writing and literature to both high school and college. I had visions and dreams, but all of that could change overnight, couldn’t it? Everything a person works for in the outside world can be taken away with the change of the tides. So I shook it all off and started my new life.
But my internalized misogyny did not fully end. When Swift’s Reputation came out next, and I was living in an apartment, not so happy with the slow pace of the success I wanted, I started listening and quickly turned off the album.
Again I wondered, who was this woman? Was this album hip hop or something? Was it rap? Soul? Who did this blonde tall skinny chick think she was, to try an entirely new genre of music? To break boundaries and barriers? To get all saucy? Taylor Swift is not supposed to be saucy! She’s supposed to have glitter and glow and smile with her guitar and talk in a doll-voice!
I didn’t listen. I barely gave it a chance. I turned away.
But then, you know, kids. They still liked Taylor. So in 2019, I got the album Lover. Oh, how I loved its dreamy nature. This album, for some reason, I bought on vinyl. I loved playing records with my kids at dinner. Every night, I’d have one of them pick out a record for us to listen to while we ate. Lover was a popular dinner pick. Yet even when the kids were with their dad on his custody days, I was still listening to the Lover album. It was so good. It was so well put together. It was so… pretty.
And then there was the song “The Man.”
“The Man” was very eye-opening, and it made me recognize all the internalized baggage I’d thrown at this successful pretty woman that didn’t belong to her. Making assumptions about her which was really my own toxic stuff. My own internalized misogyny, thinking that a woman didn’t deserve her success, trying to minimize her or negate her efforts and hard work. I was just like so many others, even though I’d been a self-avowed feminist, had gone to a women’s college. I had written my Master’s thesis on feminist utopias and dystopias. I’d explored how we have a culture that systemically demeans women, keeps women in a state of fear and limitation, especially with regard to sexual abuse. A society that structurally attempts to own women’s bodies and voices to chip away at women’s agency and autonomy, which prevents sisterhood and the rising of healthy feminine power. What was femininity anyway? Did we even know it? Or were we so scared of it we could only see its expression in drag queens, who were similarly hated for thinking they had the right to breathe and sing and shake their hips?
I would be complex
I would be cool….
I’d be a fearless leader
I’d be an alpha type
When everyone believes you—
What’s that like?
Well, with the song, “The Man,” I was really listening.
Touche, Ms. Swift. You got me.
What is it inside many of us that wants to bring down a strong, independent woman? Is it an angry demon in our psyches, a wire loose in our brains and spirits that says “Shut up, you bitch. You have everything. Don’t tell me about your problems. You’re small and insignificant and you don’t get to take up my time or my space.” Eesh. That demon is real. (Just listen to songs from Kanye.) The healthy response to the feminine, conversely, from those who are conscious, would recognize that a strong, successful, intelligent and courageous woman is a beacon of hope for our daughters and our sons. The healthy, wise expression sees success and follow-through and says, “You Go Girl!”
This approach shows our children, “You can make it, kiddos. You can rise up. Just believe in yourself. Keep going. Achieve your dreams!”
Often, we are not aware of our internal biases when it comes to sex and gender. Often, when we see a man accomplishing things he has put his heart and mind into, we point out, “Look how hard this guy is working. Give ‘em the benefit of the doubt! He’s not a god! He’s human and he’s trying. I’m gonna get behind this man.”
Yet, when it is a woman whose accomplishments may be even more striking, our darker, more nefarious natures are revealed. We have been taught something different about women’s place in society, and this lesson is rooted in the wounds, experiences, practices and assumptions of many generations. Many of us have a subtle whisper inside us that wants to tell a woman, “Girl, don’t rock the boat. Keep things light. Be nice. Stay humble and defer to the ones who know better.”
Hmm.
Where did such ideas originate, I wonder?
Well, no need to look back. We are living now. It is 2023, the 21st century. What I can say in the now, is that I am tremendously impressed with Taylor Swift. I am grateful for Ms. Swift. The talent, the heart, the perseverance. Regardless of what has happened in the media in the past, and how many people said nasty things about her, or cut her down, she keeps standing in glimmering clothes and well-fitting shoes she has bought herself. She keeps putting on her lipstick. She keeps making albums, and the albums are good. And she is good.
She is worthy of time, and she is worthy of respect, and finally, with the success of her film The ERAS Tour, people can see why.
Taylor Swift is a billionaire. Taylor Swift knows how to put on a show. Taylor Swift is highly intelligent, great with words, and a savvy business woman. Taylor Swift is an artist and a woman. Taylor Swift is a modern-day expression of the feminine divine, trying to find her dance partner in a world where dominant religion tells men they’re broken. (And often makes them broken, too.)
Well this woman ain’t broken. She is whole. And she knows some things. So catch a ride on this broomstick of hers with the rest of us, why don’t you?
In addition to watching T.S. rock out a sold-out stadium in Los Angeles—just one of many sold out stadiums—in The ERAS Tour film, she adds inclusivity to her visual expressions as an artist. The show involves scenes of women’s empowerment, as well as diversity and inclusion. The dancers don’t all look a certain way—they have a range of body types and ethnicities. They are a beautifully diverse crew of people. Even when it comes to skits about romance, she chooses men who are not white to show that white does not make might or right. This, even in 2023, is still a pretty provocative move.
What The ERAS Tour film demonstrates is that when a talented, conscious and intelligent woman rises up, she gives space for all the voices who have not been heard, and all the people who have not been seen in their fullness and capacity.
If I were to meet Taylor, I’d say, Keep going, my friend. I am smitten by you.
Taylor Swift doesn’t need a man, but loving men sure does provide great fodder for a career as an artist, ay?
So if you have not seen Taylor Swift’s ERAS Tour film, get your game on, join in the fun. There is glitter. And pink. Dancing. Joy. Truth. The journey of a talented, independent, attractive, and intelligent woman as she navigates her heart and the ladders of modern society. This is something for kids to see.
And if you want a behind-the-scenes look at how all this comes to be, check out the Miss Americana documentary on Netflix directed by Lana Wilson. That film is amazing and inspiring, too. My biggest take-away from that film? Taylor’s success couldn’t have been accomplished without a wonderful and supportive mom.
Big hugs,
Ms. Wonderful
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Bio: Ms. Wonderful is a high school teacher by day and a writer by night. She also does energy healing and bodywork and shares intuitive wisdom as a certified life coach, certified reiki healer, and certified yoga instructor. She specializes in energy healing for people going through transitions. Find out more on her personal website www.janamarierose.com. She is also a mom to three children and has published both fiction and nonfiction.
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