Taylor Swift: The Ultimate Role Model for Young Women?

[00:00:08] Kiran, a few days ago, Newsweek published an article where a man, a completely misogynistic man condemned Taylor Swift for being a wrong role model for young girls. Because she has chosen to still be single at 34, she preaches independence of women.

[00:00:30] She has gone through a revolving door of relationships and she isn't somebody that this legion of young girls across the planet should be emulating because it is destructive to their happiness in the long run.

[00:00:47] Isn't it so wonderful that it takes a man to tell women what their happiness should be? And a man in her place with her kind of success, choosing to be single, dating women would never be condemned. Nobody would ever have a problem with that.

[00:01:06] Has anyone said a thing about Harry Styles? Exactly. Harry Styles in a girl's dress. Has anyone said anything about Travis Kelsey, a boyfriend who is also not married? Exactly. But this is the whole double standard of society that even someone of Taylor Swift's success,

[00:01:23] I mean what does it take for a woman to reach that level of proving herself? Over and over again. Again. Until she has become a phenomenon in pop music and pop culture which is only rivaled by BTS in the current times. And outrivals the Beatles.

[00:01:42] Outrivals the Beatles, Outrivals Michael Jackson, Outrivals Prince, Madonna, all who have come before her and right now amongst female pop stars, she's the only one ruling the roost. You know four consecutive years, four consecutive albums have all been on the top of the charts for over six weeks.

[00:02:03] This only the Beatles couldn't manage but not sustain it in the long run. Also, one of the reasons they broke up, this split up. But this woman's power to stay and a million like ability to constantly reinvent herself is the reason she has continued to be relevant.

[00:02:21] So 2008 is when she officially launched her first album. And her success story began very quickly after that. But it's not even now her concert, there are many, there's something called a seismic activity around Taylor Swift's concert. It's called a Swift Quake.

[00:02:43] A Swift Quake they even measured it and the London concert had the loudest, the largest vibrations. Right? Imagine that. She's causing earthquakes. She's causing earthquakes. But the men can't see it.

[00:02:57] The man who wrote this, I don't know, A, how did he write it in this day and age? And how did you publish it? How did they even think that this would go past without comment, without censure?

[00:03:09] You think he also did it to get some attention because when somebody is so loved or so famous then you piggyback on their success by saying something controversial about them. Yeah, probably hoping some Swifties might fall in love with him.

[00:03:24] Possibly, do you know that on Twitter where his article got posted? If you read the comments below, a woman has gone to his account and screen shotted his quotes. One of them says feminism was invented for ugly women who can't get lucky. Really? Yes. He wishes.

[00:03:45] So basically if a woman is good looking she's not going to be feminist because she doesn't need feminism to look at men and call them out for what they are. I don't know what, Rok, he's living under this man but the fact remains that

[00:03:59] there's so much to take offense with that opinion piece, so much. A, of course as you mentioned that she's 34 and she's still single and she's childless. The second, the revolving door of relationships because of course women experience heartbreak more intensely than men.

[00:04:16] This is something that a man assumes. I think most men also experience heartbreak as we believe. Maybe where toxic masculinity doesn't permit them to express it as openly and you know, yeah. That's there and then he says something about the fact.

[00:04:34] He mentions nothing about the fact that she does a lot of good. She does so much good. She does donations. She funds child education. She funds fans who cannot afford to come to her concerts. She has given more in food charity than the government of Britain.

[00:04:53] Wherever she has performed the eras to her, she has created a food bank there because she doesn't want anyone to go without food on the two, three days or whichever number of days she's performing in a particular city and she does it quietly.

[00:05:07] Now you know somebody, KSM Nesia can say no, no, this is a publicity stunt. Nobody is going to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on publicity stunts. She gave away a very large sum of money during COVID and there's an old woman

[00:05:22] whose house got broken down during some hurricane. She was a pensioner. She gave away some $75,000 to her to rebuild a new home. She is also a big advocate for women's rights and violence against women. So she donates very actively to those organizations and quietly she goes about

[00:05:45] doing so much good. She does so much good and also let's not forget the fact that she's written the rules completely when she couldn't buy back the rights to her songs. That was such a power move. What a power move.

[00:05:59] If that is not a role model for young women, she rerecording all her songs to get the rights back to herself. And you know what? The thing is she spent the pandemic. It's a lot of work to rerecord so much music.

[00:06:13] So during the pandemic, when all of us were going through an existential crisis and wondering what next and... Baking banana bread. Baking banana bread and dandan noodles at home. She was laboring over all these songs and rerecording them and some of them in the longer versions.

[00:06:31] And that was Apple Music? I think that she was against. Yeah, up against. She did that and the fact. She was also up against Apple Music but that album recording thing that went wrong was that some investment fund bought over the label with which she had recorded first.

[00:06:48] Okay. And without her consent, why she would continue to get the royalties from her music without a consent to her lifetime rights to that music? So to do that, to rerecord your music, to take back your power

[00:07:01] from a world that is intent on taking power away from you. As a female performing artist, we've heard this often enough. Correct. Women artists who have been recording in how they've been done, turned over badly. So many cases. Yes.

[00:07:14] But to do this in this day and age and so young, it's such a wonderful move. And why should she not be an icon for young women doing this? Kiran also when she was fairly new.

[00:07:25] So her growth as a musician and as a human being is very interesting. There are enough documentaries about that. She, her parents moved down. She used to live on some Christmas tree farm. They moved to Nashville because they knew their daughter has a singing,

[00:07:40] songwriting, musical talent that needs hooning and the right mentoring. So firstly there was a very big step for parents at the age of nine to relocate completely, find new jobs there because this child of theirs was so talented. And she attended music writing classes, all songwriting classes also.

[00:08:00] Scott Fitzgerald is one of her favorite authors. She's she's very not just a pop star who sings popular chorus. She is actually a fairly good and powerful songwriter, which the well-read among us are not willing to acknowledge because it goes against their intellectual image of themselves.

[00:08:20] Yeah, we only like Bob Dylan. Exactly. So this is the thing that if you gave a music, you know, you'll see a lot of people with scoffing. Oh, she writes only love songs. Those are people who are not familiar with their writing.

[00:08:30] She has sung a song about, you know, she had to muffler voice about US elections and politics because her manager and her dad had warned her that this is going to go against your concerns. People are not going to turn up if you start getting into politics

[00:08:46] also to shut up. But she couldn't stand it any longer when the one of the candidates, a woman candidate from Nashville, who was completely misogynistic and she wanted to wipe out the the law against violence against women.

[00:09:04] Rape sex and assault without I mean rape for sex and assault against women. There was some sort of a legal not clause. What is it called? No law against it. There was a there was a law against it and she wanted to abolish that law.

[00:09:23] Lovely. And that's so she said that I cannot take it any longer. I'm not being true to myself. I can't do this any longer. I want to speak up against this woman and then she did. Despite that, while the crowds that attended her concert

[00:09:38] didn't thin out that woman won the senators seat from there. And Taylor Swift broke down because she there was a sense of hopelessness. She says she's just a female. She's just a trump trump with a female big because this woman's sense of misogyny

[00:09:55] and patriarchy so deep rooted that she's taking us dragging us backward into some other century. And then she created a song called The Man, which says that, you know, if you were if I were the man, nobody would question me anything.

[00:10:09] Nobody will have a problem with me opining on politics. And men have the power to change things so far. But then it urges the youth of today that you are young. Go for it. You are young. You can change.

[00:10:21] And she said, if I start singing, writing a song about it from today, when the next midterm elections happen by then all the young kids who follow me today would become of a voting age. That is so powerful.

[00:10:33] The thought that you are going to induce your music, use your voice to stand up and talk about your political beliefs. How many of the men have the courage to do that? Which is why men like this Newsweek idiot have a problem with her

[00:10:49] because she's a woman with power. And she said one more thing, Kiran. She said that, you know, women, she said artists, women artists get frozen in in the era where they created their best or the most popular music that has associated with them.

[00:11:07] And so they are supposed to only go on creating that kind of music. She said, so for a woman artist to survive, you have to go on green mending yourself and men don't have to do that. That's so true. That's so true.

[00:11:19] So a man doesn't have to go on green mending himself to be relevant, but a woman artist. Look at Madonna. She's had to do that all the way. Is that why her tour is called Eras? It is called the Eras for that reason. OK, lovely.

[00:11:35] And I find it so interesting. I don't know if you know people, but I don't know people who have actually planned their foreign trips coinciding with her concerts. Therefore, Swiftonomics because of that. And that's how many countries economies have had tourists in fluxes because of her concerts.

[00:11:53] She's uplifted the tourist industry, tourism industry for so many countries. You know that Justin Trudeau at the beginning of a tour requested her to please stop by in Canada as well because he wanted to help the Canadian economy as well. Lovely. Yeah.

[00:12:11] But she's not a good role model for young girls and women. Exactly. So, you know that Kanye and Taylor's animity initiated by Kanye started from the BHA music awards where she was getting the best music video and he took a very reward and said, but Beyonce deserves it.

[00:12:27] The audience booed him, but Taylor as unsure as she was and kind of being the legend that he is musically thought that she was being booed instead. Not long after that, I think they they got over what this ugly episode in her life.

[00:12:44] And Kanye sang a song in which he said, Taylor Swift should have sex with me because I made that bitch famous. So he said, Taylor might have sex with me because I made that bitch famous.

[00:12:56] And when she contested that because he said, I've done this with her permission. When she contested that, his then wife, my daughter's idol, idol and real mother, according to her, Kim Kardashian released a secretly recorded voice tape in which he's heard explaining to her,

[00:13:22] saying he's just her telling her, is that OK? Is that OK? And she says, thanks for the heads up. OK. And after that, she got Taylor Swift got canceled. But the point is you can there is no clarity on what he has said to her

[00:13:36] that she's OK with him. He could just be saying that I take your name in my song and giving you a heads up. But people didn't question that because of the kind of audience and following that Kanye has Kim command together or put together.

[00:13:50] So she got canceled and it really hurt her. And she says in a documentary, Miss Americana, that the documentary starts with her saying, my goal in life has been be a good girl.

[00:14:04] Do be a good girl and do everything it takes for people to say you're a good girl. Get people to like you. So she said that is what drove me until this point in my life, that being on stage, having people like you, saying the right things,

[00:14:19] making the right noises. She live for people's approval. But this incident taught her what happens to you when you live for people's approval. I think that's wonderful. And because what she's done after that is not seeking anyone's approval and doing exactly what she thinks.

[00:14:35] And that is the role. And that's why the album is called Reputation. Reputation. Yeah, I read a very interesting anecdote about how when she was in high school before her first music came out, before she really started climbing the ladder. Nobody really liked her. OK.

[00:14:54] And she was pretty alone and solitary. And then when she they took her out of high school after that in the homeschooled her parents because they wanted her to focus on her music and things like that.

[00:15:04] But years afterwards when she made it big, she invited all her high school classmates to a concert and those who could not come, she got them there. Really? Do you think it's because she wanted to be liked? Probably because she was like still hoping for their approval

[00:15:22] after all those years. So this I think this is where everybody wants approval. OK. And that age especially. I think that's what connects her to so many people because we're all seeking approval in some way and her songs are also so wholesome.

[00:15:36] May I just read this out, Kiran? Yeah. Wondering if I'd get that quicker if I was a man and I'm so sick of them coming at me again because if I was a man then I'd be the man. I'd be the man.

[00:15:48] They'd say I hustle put in the work. They'd say they wouldn't shake their heads and question how. They'd say I hustle put in the work. They wouldn't shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve. What I was wearing if I was rude could always

[00:16:04] separated from my good ideas and power moves because she accused of doing a lot of things because it's strategic. OK, I'm so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I'd get that quicker if I was a man.

[00:16:20] And I'm so sick of them coming at me again because if I was a man then I'd be a man. And finally she says, what's it like to brag about raking in dollars and getting bitches and models?

[00:16:32] And it's all good if you are bad and it's OK if you are mad. If I was out flashing my dollars, I'd be a bitch, not a baller. They'd paint me out to be bad. So it's OK that I'm mad because this is it.

[00:16:45] When a woman makes that kind of money, she the bitch. And she says this in a documentary, which I urge every woman young and old and even every man actually to watch. It's, you know, let's not trivialize her entire status because of teenagers like her.

[00:17:01] She says in that that 34, 35 year old woman is an elephant's graveyard. OK, a successful woman is a bitch. She said we have to stop using these words. There's no slut. There's no bitch. There's no woman who is too much.

[00:17:18] All the all this is the narrative that young girls today anyway own. Right? Absolutely. And but she speaks with such conviction that if someone turns around and tells me she's playing to the gallery, she's doing this because, you know, she makes the right noises.

[00:17:33] I refuse to believe it. And I think people need to stop being so jaded and judgmental about her. She has a Harvard course on Taylor Swift and her music and influences. Really? Yes. There's a cost then. It's not about how she's promoted herself.

[00:17:48] It's not about how her PR machinery works or et cetera, et cetera. It's about the influences in her music. I'm surprised to know that she has some very literary influences in her music. And people don't seem to give her credit for that. Who are her literary influences?

[00:18:03] I think the classics, the classics is Shakespeare, Dan, Vagara, Vagara, Vagara. She's that well-bred, huh? But she has to be because she writes her own stuff. She says I'm not so much a singer than a songwriter, which is why some of her songs sound the same.

[00:18:18] That's a criticism she faces over and over again. But then she has devoted audience that will forgive her that because her songs resonate with them so much. She always have critics because that kind of success from a woman makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

[00:18:33] And a woman who comes in with no background in the music world. No sugar daddies, so to speak. It's just your talent and grit and hard work that's got her there. She's spoken about her eating disorder also. Also. And it's very interesting.

[00:18:48] She says that it's it sneaks up to very slowly and very gradually. And then she said you reach a stage where every day of counting about what you ate today. And she says she's been through that. Then she realized that while she was looking the size

[00:19:05] she wanted to be that gave her a sense of self. She didn't have any energy or stamina that a healthy girl age must have. And then she said, and what kind of a beauty standard can one conform to?

[00:19:19] Because if you're too thin, then you don't have an ass. If you have a good ass, then you have a little belly with it. So she said she broke free from that. Well before she turned 30 because she realized that she

[00:19:33] she shows a picture of herself with her little belly showing. She said this kind of photo would have triggered me into not eating. But now I always tell myself we are not those people. We are not going to buy into that mindset.

[00:19:46] We have to be comfortable in our own skin. We don't have to, you know, adhere to any beauty standards. And it's OK if my belly shows as long as I feel healthy and strong. Now are you saying this is not a good role model?

[00:20:00] This is the perfect role model in the stage of VBLs. And what's VBL? Brazilian bum lift. Oh, yeah, that's how we have seen them wandering around Instagram with asses that are so huge and wasted our handspans. Those are all injected implants. How do you sit on bum implants?

[00:20:20] So must be very difficult, like sitting on inbuilt cushions. Yeah. And if they get punctured, what happens? Kiran, I was buying one of those seamless, you know, not thong seamless body suits to wear under gown.

[00:20:34] So then they don't show the lining and not corset because corsets are inhuman. I'm just talking about seamless high rise. What are they called? Shapers. Shapers, yeah. Not even shape, but these are more like undies. OK, so they were these seamless undies

[00:20:51] hanging with a bum built into them. Yes, I saw this for the first time two years ago in London. I have been scolding the depths and I saw the darkest depths of Instagram. I was like, now I know when women wear ball gowns or those satiny dresses,

[00:21:07] they suddenly have a bum. Yeah, I've been looking at the bum with envy. Toned bum. It's a very toned butt. But it looks damn funny. Two hard cutouts for your butt. But this is again, this is all that we are doing even in this day and age

[00:21:26] to adhere to a male beauty standard, standard defined by men. And she's talking against it. And that does not make her a good role model for young women. And she's admitting. She said that every day I want to fight my inner patriarchy every day.

[00:21:43] Definitely. Kiran, she's won 14 Grammys, 39 Billboard Music Awards. And she was a 2023 time person of the year. Wow. Yeah. How is that for being an achiever at the age of thirty to thirty four? All this has happened to her like last year.

[00:22:01] And there's an exhibition of her concert where on at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Oh, I'd love to see that. I love her concert clothes. Lovely. That's going on and something that we're not talking about. She's pocketed over seven hundred million in ticket sales to North America.

[00:22:18] Loan of a tour. OK, the total sales of the tickets for the era's tour is four point one billion. Oh, my God. OK. This does not make her a good role model again. I know. Yeah. Getting so much money.

[00:22:35] Kiran also because she started seeing Travis Kelsey and she started attending the Super Bowl. After that, children, teenagers, young women who were not interested in football have started watching football. So the ticket sales every time the chiefs are playing, that's his team.

[00:22:56] They go through the roof because of his association with. Taylor Taylor, and it's not that he was somebody to begin with. He's been in a reality show. He is famous in his own right. Also, he's a very, very big philanthropist.

[00:23:13] OK, what I also love and what I think is very important that young girls need to see forget the revolving door of relationships. See how wholesome they are with each other. Travis and Taylor. So far, so far.

[00:23:28] I mean, we are cynical old jaded women, but the fact that he shows up for her, she shows up for him. But if I was Taylor's boyfriend, I'd show up for her also. That's true, but she also shows up for him. She does. Yeah.

[00:23:39] She's quite busy about it. Yeah. And I mean, it's not like, you know, like my balls will fall off if I come on the stage with her and perform. I know. I was so cute. There was very cute. I watched that performance clip.

[00:23:51] It was very cute. He carries her. He carries her. So adorable. I mean, there's a man who's not afraid to shout out from the rooftops that he loves her. You might have some other men who would say that let me not make a big thing

[00:24:02] about it because because I'm important in my own right. And we not going to be a performer on stage. I'm not a lucky with her. But you know, look, at the end of the day, let's be a little smart about it. I'm not being jaded here.

[00:24:14] I'm just saying that it's also likely he knows what she has done for his image as a footballer. He knows what she's done for the ticket sale. So maybe he's also thinking that this is an association that

[00:24:28] aside from the fact that he loves her will also benefit the game. OK, so let's wait and watch and see what comes out of it. I mean, I was the one who was cheering when Ben Affleck and Jennifer were both together again and look what happened.

[00:24:41] They've broken up again, right? Look what happened. So do you know why they broke up? I do not have access to such inside information, darling. All the trolling you do on Instagram. OK, before we wind this up, one anecdote I should talk about is

[00:24:57] that she got groped by some guy from the music industry. And while taking a photograph of which there is evidence, his hand was on her butt. So she sued him. Lovely for molestation, grouping, whatever. And there were enough people around who were witnesses, eyewitnesses.

[00:25:22] And yet she had to go to court again and again and again to prove the validation of her claim. And then she said, if I with my power have to go this to and with so much evidence, have to go to town

[00:25:39] and state everything that I have to prove that this man is guilty, then how do voiceless women in this world, unseen women? How much harder it would be for them to be heard. And by the way, this guy sued her for damages.

[00:26:00] Lovely. And then she sued him back. So there's some backstory there that I'm not fully well versed with. But this is the crux of it. But I like the fact that she didn't let it go. Exactly. So that's the other thing.

[00:26:13] Or women that don't let these things go, don't overdo it. Don't ignore it because we came from a generation where we just sort of let it go. Most of it. Yeah, it was part for the cause. Yeah, you just didn't kick up a fast.

[00:26:23] You got on with your work and you didn't want to be the troublemaker. And especially in the world of journalism. Yeah, we've seen that. But editors exercising their power. Power and pelt from the territory, much like dogs marking their territory. Anyway, that's the power. They're fed with power.

[00:26:43] That's a topic for another day. But right now, all we want to say is Taylor Swift is perhaps the best role model young girls have today. Correct. And let no asinine, newsweek opinion writers convince you otherwise. Convince you otherwise. Correct.

[00:26:59] Just enjoy her music and enjoy what she does.