Grace Bodie and Abram Mardan
On December 8, Taylor Swift’s 21-month world tour, Eras, ends in Vancouver. It included 149 shows and was the highest-grossing tour of all time, raising over US$1 billion. There is no doubt that Swift has talent and stamina, and has an exceptional support team to make it all happen – musicians, logistics, dancers, make-up, drivers, costumes, lighting, and more.
Her influence has spread far beyond music, but is she a model for feminist struggle?
Taylor Swift has risen to fame as this generation’s pop queen. The richest female musician and highest-grossing female touring act, she’s a billionaire with millions of fans — Swifties — willing to spend entire pay cheques for a few hours of viewing Taylor from afar.
Young women, especially, find inspiration and belonging in her message of feminism. Her concerts are a safe space for girls to dance freely, find solidarity in their romantic struggles and celebrate a woman’s success. Her concerts provide a sense of community in an alienating world and an opportunity to meet real people, rather than just online.
Taylor Swift defines herself as an activist and a feminist. She has had misogynist attacks and has spoken out about her position as a woman in the music industry.
Taylor Swift’s White-Washed Feminism
Swift’s sway is such that she convinces people into believing she is “one of us.” However, her feminism is safe. Her tremendous fame gives Swift a platform to speak about women in the most difficult positions like women in Gaza and Lebanon, women in the Congo forced to perform slave labour and single mothers in her own country living on the cusp of homelessness. Yet she is silent on these “hard” issues.
Taylor Swift’s empire is a clear example of white-washed feminism and girl bossism that dominates the media. A feminism that doesn’t critique capitalism’s extreme wealth is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This is in sharp contrast to socialist feminism, which understands that class and the capitalist system is intrinsically interwoven with women’s oppression.
Capitalism forces women to do unpaid labour in the home so that men have more time and energy to work to generate wealth for the bosses and the bourgeoisie. Along with this economic reality comes a social and ideological justification that has framed women as weaker, dumber, less capable, untrustworthy and as objects.
Although this is shifting with more women rising in the corporate world (which allows them time and money to go to multiple Taylor Swift concerts around the world), breaking the glass ceiling poses the danger that women, under the banner of “feminism,” join the capitalist class and perpetuate exploitation and economic disparity.
Reject Liberal Feminism’s Idealism
While working-class people continue to grind away, being paid too little for their labour, getting sick and struggling to live a decent life, Taylor can fly on her private jet to France on a whim.
Taylor Swift’s feminism ignores that her carbon emissions (which are some of the highest of any individual at 8,293 tonnes in 2022 alone) are going to have catastrophic effects on women who are hit the hardest by climate change in the “Global South.” She ignores right-wing rhetoric occurring in her circle that silences many of her fans.
While workers are stuck trying to survive, Swift perpetuates the status quo by not addressing problems that people face day to day. Socialist Alternative strives to replace liberal idealism with a socialism that acknowledges these struggles and works to create a better future for all.
We’ll be damned if we let feminism degenerate into a cozy place for mainly white women in the “Global North” to indulge themselves and pat each other on the backs. To achieve real equality, feminism must be tied to a mass movement for socialism, with the perspectives and demands of the most exploited and oppressed at the forefront — a movement that ensures all women are safe from ethnic cleansing, war, and dangerous resource extraction and that secures fair wages, public housing, child care and free education.
We cannot expect people like Taylor Swift to spearhead this. It’s up to regular working women and men to band together to dismantle imperialism and capitalism. While Taylor highlights the plights of certain groups, we will fight for the entire working class. While her life is embedded in the current system and liberalism, we must stand against this system. We must move towards socialist feminism and socialist freedom. This is what Socialist Alternative is fighting for.
