Abstract Taylor Swift has been marked by her many fans as an icon of feminism and empowerment. Inspiring girls on how their own experiences and personal truths are something worth singing about. Illustrating what she claims to be female empowerment through ‘squads’ and award speeches. With the rapidly increasing influence of mainstream media, it is imperative to highlight how big icons such as Taylor Swift are manipulating and being manipulated by the masses, society and the market itself for profit and personal gains. This paper will discuss how Taylor Swift exemplifies an icon who uses feminism as an embellishment for her own personal brand. First it will discuss how feminism is defined and construed in mainstream popular culture. With this …show more content…
There was a time when feminism was avoided by artists, saying that they believed that women and men are and should be treated as equals in society, yet being a feminist was yet again too aggressive a term to be. But all of a sudden feminism became cool. It moved from first being accepted by society as a word that resonated with placards and street rallies to chic, fierce and edgy. An example for this would be 2014 when Beyoncé was at one of MTV’s biggest music awards night, Video Music Awards (VMA’s). After her performance the word “FEMINIST” in big bold shining letters was flashed and like a virus spreading, artist per artist claimed to be a feminist. Using it as if it were a brand that lead to profit. One particular artist stood out among the crowd, Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift started out her career as the doe-eyed country girl who sang about fantasies and woes of most teenage girls. Despite this, when asked in one of her interviews with ______ as to whether she would consider herself as a feminist given that she is giving voice to girls around the world, she answered with a resounding no. Yet as with change in trends her answer and even attitude towards feminism changed as …show more content…
It encourages violence as opposed and oppression as opposed to the equality that the feminist movement intended. IV. How the Current State of the Market Encouraged Taylor Swift’s Feel-Good Feminism Selling sex to selling activism as a strategy Taylor Swift wasn’t always the ‘feminist’ that she claims to be, before her ‘empowering’ award speeches and squads, the young icon said in an interview that she does not want to be called a feminist. Marketplace feminism, based on Zeisler’s book, We Were Feminists Once, is a form of “branding feminism as an identity that anyone can and could consume.” The boom of feminism in pop culture led Taylor Swift and many artists went with the ‘trend’ that is feminism. Yet, majority fail to discuss sensitive issues that the media might think will not go well the audiences. Thus only selected issues are identified with in mass media. V. Profits in Feminism Yet there is always a fine line that artists tread between actual activism and self-serving opportunism. Feminism as a commodity Taylor Swift rides the wave of ‘feel-good’ feminism in order to brand herself and gain the attention of
Feminism isn't about making women strong. Women are already strong. It's about changing the way the world perceives that strength." —G.D. Anderson Feminism has been an issue in our society for a very long period of time and has been shown in movies, the media and novels. The novel “Lullabies for Little Criminals” by Heather O’Neil demonstrates an extreme case of feminism as the protagonist is shown to be manipulated by men as a way to survive in the current society.
A Young Woman’s Voice in a Society That Devalues Femininity In the article “Young Women Shouldn’t Have to Talk Like Men to Be Taken Seriously,” Marybeth Seitz-Brown argues that women should not have to change their voices to be heard by a society that constantly devalues femininity. Seitz-Brown uses three effective rhetorical devices to effectively prove her argument: her awareness of the rhetorical situation, her stylistic choices, and the arrangement of her article. Seitz-Brown’s awareness of the rhetorical situation enhances her argument by tastefully adding to the feminist discourse at the time. Her target audience is all of American society because, at the end of the article, she urges that “we can do better than that” (Seitz-Brown).
During the 1950s and 60s, many young teens started to rebel in various ways to break free from the ‘Ozzie and Harriet fantasy’ their parents and generations before them have experienced. This was displayed through the themes of various rock and roll songs. A specific theme described in many songs at that time was the defiance of stereotypical gender roles. Despite being common back then, this theme and many others at that time are still evident in modern music today. A prime example of the defiance of stereotypical gender roles in modern day music is Lady Gaga.
This is a real life example of what it looks like when feminism and Poetry intertwine. Nikki Giovani an American writer and activist from Knoxville, TN has a quote a about poetry that really relates to the way Beyonce creates her music. “Writers don’t write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don’t. If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.”
In September of 1979, Audre Lorde, poet, spoke about the impossibility of dismantling the patriarchy through oppressive means. The black feminist woman, Lorde, who has cancer at the point of this speech, uses ethos, pathos, and logos in order to guilt the audience into making a change of how black feminists are represented. Ethos is the building of the author's credibility in order to become more persuasive because people tend to believe people who they deem likable or respectable. “I agreed to take part in a New York University Institute for the Humanities conference a year ago, with the understanding that I would be commenting upon papers dealing with the role of difference within the lives of American women: difference of race, sexuality, class, and age. The absence of these considerations weakens any feminist discussion of the personal and the political.”
Octavia Butler is an Afrofuturist, science fiction author who writes many dystopian stories that allude to questions about gender, social structures, and an individual’s ability to control her body and sexuality. When people think of speculative and science fiction they tend to think of nerdy white men writing stories about space and light sabers, but Octavia Butler challenges this stereotype herself by being one of the few African American women in this genre. In Octavia Butler’s speculative fiction short story “Speech Sounds” there is a reversal of gender roles and a strong idea of feminism that is portrayed through the main character Rye. There is also the use of simile and metaphor to help point out flaws in the social structure of the story and the world of the reader.
Some of these women created their own punk bands including “Perdone, Berserk, Doughnuts, Fast Times, Walls of Jericho…” (Haenfler 146). These bands addressed the prominent issues regarding sexism prejudice in society. By directly voicing these concerns among the punk scenes all across the United States, these young women showcased their resistance and affected their audience members directly. Through another similar media source, DeGeneres embraces her individuality and fights against homophobia by using her fame.
Women has greatly suffered in society from the beginning until now and no one seems to notice this prolonged issue that women have to endure in their daily lives. The media played a major role to how women are perceived in todays society. Nevertheless, in todays world more and more individuals are attempting to address the problem to solve this issue once and for all. Jennifer Newsom effectively convince her audience in an American documentary film: “Miss representation” to embellish the denigration of women in society and persuade the audience through the use of logos, pathos, and explicit visual images.
Schwichtenberg, ‘Cathy. " Madonna's Post Modem Feminism: Bringing the Margins to the Center. " The Madonna Collection: Representational Politics, Subculture Identities, and Cultural Theory. Ed.
Mean Girls, set in Illinois, depicts the socio-political climate of an American high school, with it’s protagonist, Cady Heron moving from Africa and homeschooling to be socialised in her new society. The antagonist throughout the film, Regina George, is portrayed as an authoritarian woman who has total control of the school (Mean Girls 2004). Regina is shown to engage with numerous sexual partners at the same time and promotes her liberation through wearing a tee-shirt with her bra protruding out the front when she finds two holes cut at her breasts; motivating a new fashion trend throughout the cohort (Mean Girls 2004, Robinson-Cseke 2009, p. 45). This depiction of a strong, independent woman aligns with ‘Post-feminist texts-films, books, magazines and television programs characterised by a model of young womanhood that is empowered, successful, entitled, independent, socially mobile and free to choose her destiny’ (Toffoletti 2008, p. 72). Post feminism is further reflected in the film through the power change which occurs, transferring from Regina to Cady, mirroring the transfer of power from second wave feminism to post feminism.
Gender equality has been a worldwide issue for many years now. Different figures, such as Emma Watson, have been educating society on this ever-so-present issue. Emma Watson has been using her platform to help teach and make known this topic to people, specifically by putting her time and into her feminism campaign, ‘HeForShe’, and giving speeches on the topic. Emma Watson uses the techniques of ethos and pathos to convey her purpose. Emma Watson uses ethos to illustrate her ideas effectively and show herself as credible.
I Was A Teenage Feminist is a documentary film directed by Therese Shechter which displays the evolution and the many variations of what people believe the word feminist to mean. The film also raises issues such as women’s reproductive rights, sexuality, and equal pay. Through interviews with feminist icons such as Gloria Steinem and with random people on the streets of New York, we see that the feminist movement has plenty more obstacles to overcome. The ignorance of what feminism actually means is harming the movement from progressing. The majority of men that were interviewed on the streets believed that feminists were either lesbians or anti-men.
"Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. " Everyone needs feminism, and celebrities have been influential to the awareness of this cause over the past few years. For example, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter expresses her feminist beliefs directly through her music, and Miley Cyrus shows her feminism in a more indirect way. Being exposed to various celebrities’ views on feminism can help people express their own views.
The Rhetoric of “We All Should Be Feminists” Novelist, Chimamanda Adichie lectured an audience on why we all should be feminists. Feminists are people who believe in the social, political, and economical equality of the sexes. Adichie describes a couple of times when she was called or implied herself to be a feminist. Adichie’s focus in the lecture was feminists but her main focus was feminists in Nigeria because that is what and where she knows.
The term feminism has several definitions and interpretations as the theory itself varies according to its use. However the general aim of the feminism is to change the degrading position of women in literature and the real world. Robbins in her book, Literary Feminism opines that “feminism is most commonly understood as meaning the ‘advocacy of the rights of woman’ and it has to do with