On Friday, February 19, 2016, Kesha lost the battle with her record company, thus forcing her to keep working with and under her abuser, Dr. Luke.

Kesha reported that her producer, Dr. Luke, had abused her, her body, and her talent and started the fight to get out of her contract. She claimed that he physically raped her in addition to emotional and verbal abuse; telling her that she had no talent and she should be thanking him for working with her.

This loss for Kesha has had an immense impact on the feminist movement today for multiple reasons.

Many, many celebrities have spoken out about how unfair the decision was including Halsey, Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson, Lorde, and Sara Bareilles just to name a few. However, the celebrity that had a lot to say about this feminist issue was Demi Lovato.

Her first tweet about the issue expressed her love and support to Kesha along with the hashtag #FreeKesha, a hashtag that trended worldwide after the decision. Afterward, she sent out a spree of tweets that expressed her disbelief that other celebrities that call themselves feminists are not coming forth and speaking about the issue. Many people believe that this was directed at singer and songwriter, Taylor Swift because she never spoke out about what happened. Swift has made a show of feminism and women supporting women to be a huge motivator in her life and career before and that’s why people were confused when she made no such attempt to publicly show support.

However, hours after Lovato’s tweet directed at Swift, Kesha’s mother tweeted saying that Taylor Swift had donated $250,000 dollars to Kesha to help with costs since she has not released music since 2013.

So what does this say about the feminist movement now? It’s interesting how the women in this feminist movement can so easily turn on each other when there are bigger issues at hand. What does this say to abused, young girls about what happens when they try to speak out?

If a rich, famous mega pop star can’t get out of a simple contract, what are young girls supposed to expect when they talk about their abusers? Why should they bother if even Kesha can’t win?

Even the fact that this loss got twisted into a totally different issue is discouraging. Ironic how Lovato will call out Swift for her lack of feminist support is doing just the same: showing a lack of feminist support.

My hope is that despite all the negativity surrounding this issue, young girls find a way to feel encouraged to speak up and be heard. I also hope that this opens people’s eyes to some of the cruelty and injustice occurring in this world. Not only do just young, stupid kids from poor neighborhoods get treated this way, even role models and people we look up to have to deal with the terrible people in this world.