Taylor is a white, straight, cisgender woman so she has more of a responsibility to speak out about intersectional feminism (which she doesn’t). Beyonce has been consistent with her media presence for years while Taylor exploits moments to promote her brand and then slinks away when her voice is very much needed,…

Yes, but she won’t alienate her midwestern base. A lot of pop stars won’t, i.e. Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez haven’t made any statements. Beyonce incorporated political messages into a few songs and performances, but a lot of these stars don’t speak up.

I agree. I usually don’t judge celebrities too harshly either, and judging other people’s feminism can be dangerous. But I think companies deserve to be side-eyed when they take the least controversial, easiest to perform parts of a movement and use them to promote their products. Taylor’s personal views here are…

I never want to hear “influencer” again. It’s hard enough to keep a straight face at work when I hear it.

I’m no Rihanna fan, but I sort of fell in love with her when I saw her dancing at the NY Women’s March.

I loved her when she was a kid oddball with strange fashion sense. She introduced my to the art that is Commes de Garcons. Now that she is a young adult, I’m kinda like “meh..get off my lawn”

That might just be food poisoning.

Thanks. I read this but got bogged down by the Lena Dunham discussion and forgot how I felt and then you went and articulated it.

TS: Women shouldn’t criticize me, women should uplift each other. Yay feminism!

Bingbingbing! She opened that door herself. Proving that her feminism was more marketing stunt than any kind of actual political belief.

Beyonce [was] out there

I think that’s where I get annoyed with her. She has no problem using feminism to defend herself or to promote her products, but Swift RARELY ever references feminism under any other context. She talks about “girl power” primarily in reference to herself, only extending the idea out to others to make her message more…

Yep! Lots of people have said this. Fans have even started calling her out for using feminism as a brand or when it suits her needs, especially when she didn’t participatee in the Womens March and only made a passing tweet. It’s like Katy Perry, Rihanna and Beyonce were out there. But especially Katy Perry, it’s like…

That’s my only issue with it. Feminism is political. You can’t just put it on when you want like a designer jacket and expect people not to call you out on that. 

and our brands must be sufficiently woke

YES. If you’re going to explicitly and intentionally profit from the political movement you damn well better also help it along.

We have a winner!

I don’t think celebrities are necessarily obligated to voice political concerns, but when TS uses feminism as marketing, I think she somewhat opens herself up to this kind of criticism.

I don’t think that celebrity endorsements / opposition are as effective as people like to believe.

Taylor Swift isn’t even just a celebrity anymore. She is a BRAND.