Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj have made up but Swift's "tone death" swipe at Minaj over Twitter has dented her image. Photo / Getty Images
Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj have made up but Swift's "tone death" swipe at Minaj over Twitter has dented her image. Photo / Getty Images
Get this: I once met Taylor Swift's mum.
My first job in journalism coincided with the release of Swift's second album,Fearless - the pop/country crossover that took her out of Nashville and on to our magazine covers. As a staffer on a teen girls' mag, I could see that Swiftwas perfect for our demographic. I was constantly bombarded with emails - and sometimes handwritten letters - from readers who loved her and identified with her.
Swift was singing about being geeky, awkward, rejected by boys and not fitting in. At last, young girls had a mainstream pop star who didn't sell themselves on confidence or sexiness. Here was the ultimate underdog.
I kept a professional eye on her career, and became a bit of a fan myself. When I ended up backstage at a meet-and-greet, in a work capacity, I bumped into Mummy Swift - and gushed about what a wonderful role model her daughter was, and how proud she must be.
Half a decade later, Swift is a global megastar - but right now? I don't think she's such a good role model. In fact, I think she needs a few role models herself to teach her how to use her newfound power with a touch more grace.
Swift made her fortune by playing on her underdog status and amping up her relatability - but when you're the youngest person ever to appear onForbes Most Powerful Woman list, the only act to have three albums that sold more than a million copies in their opening week, and you get nine MTV Video Music Award nominations, you can't claim to be an underdog any more.
You're a powerhouse.
So when Swift started a spat with Nicki Minaj earlier this week, after the pop star spoke out about not getting a deserved VMA nomination for herAnaconda video and the lack of women of colour on the list, it did not look good. It looked condescending, patronising - and at worst - offensive.
Besties: Swift and Minaj in 2011. Photo / Getty Images
Because Swift isn't playing as David any more - she has peaked to become Goliath.
The trouble with privilege is that it's usually invisible. When you can't stop winning, it's easy to assume that the playing field must be level. And if you're young and self absorbed, you don't pause to ask yourself whether the odds might just be stacked in your favour - especially when you've grown up seeing yourself as an outsider. But it behoves any young, successful woman to acknowledge that their contemporaries might be coming up against barriers they themselves can't identify or feel.
Swift's response to Minaj revealed a lot about the way wealthy white women are socialised to see themselves at the centre of the universe. Minaj was criticising what she perceives as a culture of institutionalised racism - but Swift had to make it all about her. We've all been there, as self-absorbed 14 year-old school girls ("Oh my God! They're talking about me. I know they're slagging me off!") but you can't really get away with it when you're a 25-year-old millionaire.
This also goes for Katy Perry, who went one step further to make a conversation about race into an argument about her own career, taking Minaj's side as a way of reigniting her old feud with Swift.
Keep up at the back yeah?
Swift has made a fortune out of embracing her perceived unfixable 'flaws' - acting a bit nerdy, wearing comedy glasses, being a bad dancer and not being able to get the boy. She's shown teens that it's possible to triumph, no matter what holds you back in high school. But Swift has now exposed some much more serious flaws.
That's an inability to empathise; a failure to be thoughtful, and a short-sightedness that no pair of thick-framed spectacles can fix. Swift suggested that Minaj was guilty of a feminist fail by "pitting women against each other".
But Swift is the one who has profited hugely from feminism's fourth wave, rebranding as a "full blown feminist" and publicly celebrating her friendship with 'voice of a generation' and ultimate Girl Lena Dunham.
It's down to Swift to make her feminism fully intersectional, and to put her power and privilege to work for the sake of all the women who don't enjoy the incredible advantages that she does.
Swift has now apologised to Minaj for 'missing the point, and misunderstanding and mispeaking'. But is it really enough - or is it just a half-hearted attempt from her PR team to rectify the image of 'lovely Taylor who loves all women'? With great power comes great responsibility.
Swift's star has been burning increasingly brightly in 2015, but if she doesn't acknowledge the privilege that comes with her position in the galaxy, it will burn out. When Tina Fey and Amy Poehler made a silly joke about Swiftat the 2013 Golden Globes, the singer responded by quoting Madeleine Albright's famous line: "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
Over reaction much?
It's vital that Swift acknowledges she's not one of these 'other women' any more - she's the one who is in a position to help those beneath her on the ladder.
She must use her power for good - or the fans who have made her won't stick around to support her. And she won't be able to profit from that power any more.
