Why must you pit women against each other? Why can't these women just be badass, why do they have to be more badass than another woman? It's horribly sexist and goes completely against what I thought this blog was about. You can celebrate these women for who they are WITHOUT tearing other women down in the process.
So this is in reference to the Taylor Swift badass ladies thread. Let me set some context:
Every five minutes for the past 2-3 days, Iāve been tagged in that thread, be it on Twitter, on Facebook, on Tumblr, wherever. And Iām usually asked to reply with a list of women "more badass than Taylor Swift.ā
First, I donāt agree with the premise of rankings. Itās gross and dumb and subjective. The story of Murasaki Shikibu doesnāt speak to me but it does to other people - doesnāt make it less valid.
Second, in virtually every reply, I went on at length that I donāt know almost anything about Swift and hold nothing against her. Sheās young, sheās in the spotlight, sheās probably both done cool stuff andĀ said dumb shit. I know I said plenty of dumb shit when I was that age. I hope she grows from it. To give a sense of how amorphous my opinion is of her, sheās featured in the TIME Person of the Year article that I posted just today.Ā
But this sort of thing - being yanked into some controversy - happens to meĀ all the goddamn time. Usually I just ignore them, but this one just kept coming back with such a startling frequency, and with such vehemence, that I figured it was popping up for you readers at least a couple times.
So I tried to make something positive out of it. I didnāt put anyone down, specifically saying I donāt have anything against Swift, and I tried putting the spotlight on female authors, to provide something for the holidays.
I could have taken readers to task for piling on Swift, but:
It is a phenomenal waste of energy to yell at strangers to change their opinion;
Who the F am I, some random dude from Kentucky, to tell anyone what to think;
For all I know, Swift has been terrible at some point? Iām busy enough, I donāt have time to go research every controversy sheās ever been a part of.
So I tried making something positive out of it by redirecting immediately away from the huge waste of emotional energy that was the snarkiness of the original thread.
This was not enough for some readers and Iāve now been fielding several days ofĀ āyouāre a shit feministā messages. In the future, Iāll probably stick to my original intent and just not mention it at all, as itās a Kobayashi Maru situation that just drains resources.
