Originally posted at David Horowitz’s Newsreal:
There is no limit to the amount of control that feminazis want to have over our lives. If women do not adhere to the unbelievably strict rules set down for us by the fascist feminist Left, then they are labeled anti-feminist and anti-woman. The latest example of the femisogynist litmus test is Taylor Swift, denounced as unfeminist… for writing about true love and having a wholesome image. The nerve!
Taylor Swift isn’t even 21 yet, and she’s already a force to be reckoned with. She became a superstar in 2006 at the age of sixteen, and today she’s sold over 10 million albums and appeared in several major motion pictures. She’s written her own music and said that most of her songs are autobiographical. She not only sings, but she also plays guitar and has produced much of her own music. Does any of this matter? Nope! Her latest song, Mine, has the femisogynists up in arms.
This song is rife with freaky-deaky, weirdo language that frames Swift as someone perpetually under the ownership, or at least care, of a male authority. The lyrics describe her as not a woman, but as a “careless man’s careful daughter” that her new boyfriend has “made a rebel of.” This is problematic to me, in the sense that it implies a transfer of her ownership from one man to another. I think it’s weird in this song that she doesn’t seem to have any sense of her own identity away from the love interest, or her father. I do, however, give her props for the use of the line “we got bills to pay.” Though grammatically incorrect, it implies that Taylor will be helping to pay the bills though some means of gainful employment. Let’s go back in time 50 years so that I can congratulate her on being progressive!
The other thing I found noteworthy was how Taylor was dealing with the transition from teen star to general entertainer. As much as she infantilizes herself, Swift is distinctly more adult here as compared to her previous videos. She’s got bills to pay! She has children! Usually when you see “teen” stars (she’s 20) make the transition from adolescence, they do it via the sexy route, à la Britney, LiLo, and Miley. This video is unique in the sense that Taylor Swift appears to be trying to age herself into a more matronly, albeit still conventionally attractive, role. It’s not often that we are encouraged to make an association between young pop starlets and motherhood….
Aside from completely misconstruing the lyrics, why does it matter what Taylor Swift writes about? Here is a self-made woman, someone who has built a career for herself, and done it in a classy, age-appropriate manner. For most rational, normal people, Taylor Swift is considered a role model. But it’s not good enough for the feminazis. Heaven forbid someone writes songs about their own feelings without consulting the fascist feminists about whether or not it’s considered Feminist Approved.
Feministing also jumped on the anti-Taylor Swift bandwagon, because Taylor Swift — a woman — is somehow “sexist.” And the reason that she is sexist is because a few femisogynists decided that the message of her music is somehow bad. Traditional love and romance is considered the most sexist thing ever when it comes to these enlightened beings. (After all, why should a woman be in a traditional, loving, respectful relationship?) When you consider that, as stated before, most of Swift’s songs are autobiographical, as in, based on her own experiences in relationships, it’s even more ridiculous. The feminazis claim that the issue is that music should speak to people, but obviously her music does speak to people, or she wouldn’t be selling millions and millions of albums. The issue here isn’t that women and girls don’t empathize with Taylor Swift’s lyrics, it’s that the feminazis want to decide what kind of relationships are sexist and not sexist.
The issue here is not about Taylor Swift. It’s about the monster that these feminazis have turned feminism into. Equality has gone completely out the window. It’s just like how pro-abortion advocates call themselves “pro-choice”. It isn’t about women deciding what choices to make for themselves. Taylor Swift, for example, is a successful, independent, wealthy woman who has accomplished so much at an incredibly young age. But because certain women who have hijacked the term feminist don’t like what she sings about, she’s automatically labeled as sexist and anti-feminist. Wouldn’t equality mean that a woman could choose to write whatever kind of music she wanted to write about… and that women could choose to listen to whatever kind of music they like? Feminism is not about a litmus test for how a woman lives her life, and it isn’t a list of rules. Feminism is about equality… something that the women who claim to be fighting for women’s right threw out the window a long time ago.
how dare they talk about my future ex-wife like that.
I gave up bubblegum pop a while ago, but I like the song anyway. I’m surprised they’re not telling her to keep all that money she’s donating to Nashville and to her hometown and telling her to instead spend it on an abortion clininc or something.
It seems to me that this is another example of a strong and self-supporting woman that doesn’t fit the mold and therefore must be stopped.
Jamie Keiles doesn’t like what the song says. She wants to get in there and write it herself. Now of course, it doesn’t occur to her that she could write her own song. She is far more interested in brow beating Taylor Swift for lyrics that don’t meet Jamie’s standard.
The curious part of the whole thing is that when called on it, Jamie says
“if you are tired of my overanalyzing, then feel free to stop reading my blog… that’s the beauty of the internet :)”
And she is right, of course. Strange she does not see how the same response would apply to her.
Seems like a nice kid, though.
Radical, left wing feminists have a mandatory group consciousness requirement that is reminiscent of the Borg from Star Trek. The prime criterion for membership is that one adopt unquestioningly and uncritically their pre-packaged collection of values and beliefs. Critically examining those assumptions sets off shrieks of alarm and iron lung gasps of horror and indignation.
Analyzing their rhetoric reveals that they attempt to justify their professional victimhood by mercenarily grave robbing the sorrows of long dead ancestors. Then, based upon this embarrassingly inept and specious reasoning, they claim that the suffering of others is cause for them to have privileges and benefits that they want to deny to others.
They are simply too pusillanimous to bear being treated as they treat others.
Wonderful post, Cassy!
From what I’m starting to see, femisogynists also don’t like strong women, period. Sarah Palin? Bristol Palin? Sharron Angle? Nikki Haley? Taylor Swift? All women who are living proof that the mythical patriarchy has as much power over us as we let it have.
(Yes, I’ve sometimes run across sexism in engineering, law, and athletics, but for every Neanderthal out there, there’s two or three men who want to push me to the top. Pretending that those men don’t exist, and acting like no woman has what it takes to succeed, really pisses me off.)
Um, to add to the above: you can’t play the victim card with women like Taylor Swift out there; it starts to become clear that whatever problems Valenti, Marcotte, or Dowd have in their own lives, it’s not because of the patriarchy.
I admit I never heard the song before, so I just looked up the lyrics. I don’t simply disagree with the critic here: I think she’s totally nuts.
“She doesn’t seem to have any sense of her own identity away from the love interest, or her father” ? Uh, this is a love song. Of course it’s about her relationship with her love interest. Who writes a love song that says, “Oh, I love you baby, you make my life complete, but of course I also have a job and hobbies and political views that are also important to me.”
Her brief reference to her father doesn’t indicate subservience at all. She contrasts herself with her father: he was “careless” but she is “careful”. Apparently she is not her father’s slave or even trying to emulate him.
Might I also point out that she tells her boyfriend, “You are the best thing that’s ever been mine”? Sounds awfully possessive to me. When men refer to their wives or girlfriends in such a possessive way, the feminists always have heart failure. So why don’t they see this as a pro-feminist statement? She considers a man to be her property.
The feminists really have to stretch to find anything to object to from their point of view. This looks like they’re just trying to find things to complain about.
This goes to show how utterly inane feminism has become. That feministas have taken to deconstructing the lyrics of sweet and fluffy country-pop fusion music proves that they are scraping the bottom of the barrel for ANY opportunity to appear relevant. I’ve gone from being angry at their blatant man-hatred to laughing at their silly tantrums. I’m so glad I’m a SMART woman and not a N.O.W. clone.
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