The Feminist Tightrope
Amelia Giese (she/her)
Editorial Team Member
I’m not the first to admit that I like Taylor Swift. Her lyrics are timeless, her melodies are soulful, and her branding is practically an aesthetic movement. But while I’ll scream every word of “New Romantics” like it’s gospel, I still get a little uncomfortable knowing she’s a billionaire. She’s not just rich—she’s the richest female musician ever. Until a couple of weeks ago, she held the title of youngest self-made female billionaire.
As much as I respect her, I have a hard time supporting billionaires for a myriad of reasons. The most important one being that no one in the entire world can ever spend one billion dollars on themselves in their lifetime. No one needs that kind of money, especially not when there are millions upon millions of people out there suffering in poverty.
Taylor has built a lot of her brand on being a feminist, on being equitable. She is a girlboss—a feminist icon. She has worked her ass off over the last twenty years to get to where she is today. She has been torn down and shamed for simply following her dreams. She has been ridiculed in a way that no man in her position has ever been. She has persevered and built much of her current brand off of those experiences. Taylor’s hustle is inspiring, as she stands for so much I believe in—but can you really call yourself a feminist icon while sitting on a billion-dollar empire?
The first question you have to ask is would we even be having this conversation if Taylor were a man? Frankly, no. Jay-Z is the richest musician, and I have never seen anything saying that Jay-Z is “a terrible person” for being a billionaire. He is worth nearly twice as much as Taylor Swift is, yet no one seems to care. He is allowed to exist with his absurd amount of wealth while she is not. That’s no accident. It is exactly because she is a woman that we are holding her under a microscope. If people really cared about “ethical billionaires,” then Every. Single. Billionaire. would get brought up, not just Taylor Swift.
Although, you can’t really compare Taylor to typical billionaires either. Jeff Bezos treats workers like cogs, but still gets called a “space cowboy.” Elon Musk bankrolls anti-feminist politicians and gets away with calling it innovation. Taylor, on the other hand, handed out over $55 million in bonuses to her Eras Tour crew and uses her platform to speak out on issues like LGBTQ+ rights and voter access. She may be insanely wealthy, but she’s not funneling her money into creating a modern dystopia like some other billionaires (looking at you Jeff and Elon). But is this enough to make her different from other billionaires? Sure, she’s generous and stands up for others, but you just simply can’t ethically be a billionaire. And we have to have this conversation while also bringing in other billionaires. It can’t just be about her.
I think the one of the bigger reasons people have an issue with billionaires is because they(and corporations) are single handedly ruining the planet—Taylor included. She flies around in a private jet, racking up thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions a year. In fact, in 2022, she produced 8,293 tonnes of CO2, which is over 1,100 times the average person's annual emissions. You cannot feminist your way out of that one. I understand there’s difficulties having celebrities fly on commercial jets, but you can use a tour bus. You can take a train or a boat. There are so many less harmful ways to travel. That reason is simply an excuse; it does not justify the impact she is leaving on our world that subsequently effects on everyone in it. She literally has a billion dollars—I’m sure she can afford other, more sustainable methods of travel.
If you ask me, the next step after you make a billion dollars is to donate a large sum of it. And if we’re looking for feminist icons who walk the walk, we don’t need to look far. Enter Dolly Parton. She should have billions. She has also built an empire: Dollywood. She has been so culturally impactful. She’s an acclaimed musician with so many albums, been in dozens of films, and literally has a theme park. Yet she’s not a billionaire—she’s not even close. Why? Dolly is incredibly generous with her earnings. She has donated millions upon millions to vaccine research, disaster relief, and children’s literacy programs. If anything, maybe Dolly Parton should be the face of the feminist movement, not Taylor Swift.
The point here isn’t to cancel Taylor, nor is it to diss on her success—it’s to critically love her. Feminism doesn’t mean idolizing without question. It means asking better questions. It means critical thinking. I shouldn’t be shamed for criticizing her net-worth, nor should I be shamed for liking her in the first place.
No one is perfect, not even Taylor Swift.
Maybe the most feminist thing we can do is allow for complexity. Maybe it’s okay to scream “New Romantics” and still want a world where power isn’t so unevenly stacked. Maybe that’s the real revolution: 1989 in one hand and accountability in the other.
