Let me preface this entire article by saying that I love Taylor's music, and I shamelessly listen to all of her songs (in fact, I'm listening to her album Red as I write this), so much so that my "Top 25 Most Played" on iTunes is mostly Swift's songs. She has a great talent for writing about her emotions and situations and still make them relatable to many people and apply her thoughts to catchy beats. However, Taylor has recently become a feminist (which is great!), her music has begun to shift in its lyrical content, and she defended how personal her songs/writing are despite the heavy scrutiny she receives compared to male singers who write about personal relationships.

photo courtesy of twitter

While I will say Taylor has made quite the evolution and has become increasingly vocal about her feminism, she has become a little sensitive to this subject, and I think it needs to be addressed, especially in light of recent events regarding the VMA's.

When the VMA nominations were announced, Swift had received a nomination for her video for Bad Blood for Video of the Year, but Nicki Minaj's Anaconda was not nominated. Minaj took to Twitter to express her disappointment, but this tweet was taken personally by Swift:

While one could argue that Nicki intended to subtweet Taylor about having a gaggle of models in her music video and received the Video of the Year nomination, and Nicki's video celebrated curvy women and didn't get nominated, there is a bigger issue with Taylor's response to Nicki's tweet. If you watch Taylor's video for Bad Blood, you will notice the video is all about "pitting women against each other." The music video is one big girl fight: Taylor's former friend Arsyn betrays her, so she gathers a massive group of models girls to fight her. It is quite hypocritical for Swift to be so quick to respond to Minaj's tweet not only thinking it was directed at her, but also that it was meant to pit her against Minaj. The dictionary definition of feminism does not include never getting mad at other women or disagreeing with other women. If Taylor Swift considers herself a feminist, she should advocate for equal rights of women in all aspects of society, not preventing other women from having their own opinions.

Taylor Swift makes great music and puts on impressive shows, and she should focus on supporting other musical talents, not tearing them down for having their own opinions.

*note: Taylor has since publicly apologized to Nicki Minaj, claiming she "misunderstood, and then misspoke."