Taylor Swift is the most famous woman on earth. For many that success makes Swift an indisputable feminist, for many it also raises questions about her politics and relationship to feminism. Often associated with apolitical and commercialised White feminism, Taylor is not without her critics.
Taylor Swift is the most successful pop star of the 21st century, with a career that continues to grow larger. Although there seems to be just as much hate for the artist as there is love, it is undeniable that she is a household name as well as a brand in her own right. With her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, now out and a record-breaking world tour having ended, her approach to fame has come under fire, with massive societal and environmental concerns being raised. Her approach to feminism is also highly criticised; she may even be the blueprint of White feminism in 2025. There are several reasons why this is. Her environmental impact, her sparing incorporation of feminism into her brand, and her enabling of tearing other women down show that being a Swiftie may not be the empowering experience it has been touted to be.
Taylor’s environmental impact
The Eras Tour was a global phenomenon, with 149 shows across five continents, which grossed over $2.2 billion, but to put it lightly, it was an environmental car crash. Swift’s private jet in 2024 alone emitted over 511,000 kg of CO₂, equivalent to the annual emissions of 122 petrol cars. Previously, in 2022, Swift emitted 8,300 tonnes of CO₂ just from private flights, 1,800 times higher than the average person’s annual emissions. With such a young and global audience, Swift’s voice could have a huge positive impact on environmental issues, but instead, her team decided to send a cease-and-desist letter to the creator of a flight-tracking account that exposed her frequent private flights and constantly bunkered down on the fact that she purchases carbon offsets to cover emissions. Her team even went as far as claiming she bought “more than double the offsets” needed to neutralise the emissions from the Eras Tour, but offsets do not erase the climate damage from private jets.
Climate change is a feminist issue. When extreme weather disasters happen, women and children are 14 times more likely to die than men, and 4 out of 5 people displaced by climate change are women and girls. On top of this, services such as sexual and reproductive health care are disrupted due to climate change, and related disasters are linked to increases in child marriages in Bangladesh due to families marrying off daughters when resources are scarce. A direct cause of climate change is the use of private jets and the rich being able to destroy the environment without bearing the brunt of it. Carbon offsets are a luxury solution for the rich, and Taylor Swift going down the carbon offsets route is just a way to buy her way out of accountability instead of recognising the real damage and lived realities of women who have no such option.
Whenever Swift’s carbon footprint is brought up, the immediate defence from fans is, “What about male billionaires? Why aren’t you calling them out?” But this is quite a pointless defence. It’s not only possible to critique Jeff Bezos and Taylor Swift, it’s necessary. ‘Whataboutism’ is a classic deflection tactic, and in this case, it mirrors a kind of “anything goes” feminism where individual empowerment excuses systemic harm. Taylor Swift is not being targeted for this because she’s a woman. She is being targeted because she is recklessly producing more carbon emissions in a year than most people could in multiple lifetimes. She is being held accountable despite the way her fans try to frame accountability as misogyny. Feminism is not a shield for criticism, and it is especially not a shield for wealthy White women who exploit the environment.
There has been zero transparency with Swift or her team clarifying where the carbon credit money actually goes or how it really neutralises her attack on the climate. And whilst this is ongoing, Indigenous women activists are leading resistance against oil pipelines in America and land destruction in the Amazon; they have been on the frontlines of climate justice for decades, but receive a sliver of the visibility Swift receives.
Capitalist Feminism
Hand-in-hand with this environmental critique comes Taylor Swift’s brand of feminism, which is so deeply entangled with capitalism. The Swift brand has mastered the art of monetising womanhood and turning empowerment into a marketing strategy that benefits her pockets. Her moves reinforce her power at the top rather than creating stepping stones for other women. This is evident in the way she curates her public image, especially since the 1989 era. Since then, she has surrounded herself with a ‘squad’ of women who largely share her privilege; they are mostly White, slim and conventionally attractive. The same pattern continues up to today with artists such as Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams, who gain visibility through touring with her but are, yet again, mostly White women from well-connected or privileged backgrounds. Her dancers do offer a diverse representation; however, they remain firmly within the ‘Swiftverse’, serving to diversify the backdrop of her brand.
Her way of engaging with her fanbase is such a clear example of this. Swift releases multiple deluxe versions of albums with minimal changes, on sale for a limited time, to drive sales. The same can be said for her concert tickets and merchandise; they are status symbols, with fans spending more than they can afford. Fans will empty their wallets on tickets and merch without a thought, so they can support their idol. Swift is now a billionaire, in part due to this exploitation of fandom and feminist tropes.
The volume of Swift-branded products and profit-driven decisions suggests an overriding priority on business. Since rerecording her albums and the upcoming new releases, she has flooded the market with collectable vinyls, special edition CDs, and merch drops, most of which will end up in a landfill. The problem is not just overconsumption; these vinyl productions clog up the machines that are used to make the records. When big artists do vinyl variants of so many different albums or singles and enormous runs of limited editions, it stops smaller artists from being able to produce records. It also keeps the vinyl industry away from smaller artists. Swift’s feminism is just a service to herself; she embraces the girl-power label to boost her image but avoids the sacrifices or solidarity that could cost her something. The Eras Tour highlighted this so much too; the prices and the Ticketmaster fiasco, caused by the demand for the tickets, even caused Congressional hearings on monopolies. And whilst Swift did give generous crew bonuses and food bank donations, charity/philanthropy does not cancel out an unequal system, nor does it cancel out profiting off a fake, empowering brand.
It is choice feminism to the core; the girl-power image that Swift pushes is simply to empower her own image and brand and grow her bank account. It does not change inequality, nor does she use her status as a billionaire to effectively enact change. In fact, instead of really being empowering, critics theorise that Swift drops music strategically to block other artists from reaching the top of the charts. A truly intersectional feminist would prioritise principle over profit, and this has not happened; Swift is instead focused on her own success, regardless of how untouchable it is, and a shallow girl-power vibe.
Tearing down other women
A clear example of Swift tearing other artists down is the 2015 Nicki Minaj incident, where Minaj pointed out that Black women’s influence on pop culture goes unrecognised by the music industry. Instead of listening, Swift jumped in to say Minaj was pitting women against each other and derailed the conversation about race into one about artist-on-artist drama. Swift centred herself whilst silencing a Black woman’s critique, and instead of acknowledging the impact of Black women on pop culture, she shot it down and took it as a personal attack. Although she did apologise for this later, it was a little too late and still not a great look for her. Perhaps Swift took it as a personal attack due to the cultural appropriation in the Shake it Off video, where Swift plays at hip-hop tropes surrounded by dancers of colour only to emerge as the clean-cut White star of the show. Even in her Wildest Dreams video, she romanticised colonial Africa with an entirely White cast. All of this, plus her ‘girl squad’, which was made up of almost entirely White women, shows that her version of empowerment and feminism is a narrow ideal of White womanhood.
Swift’s feminism also often comes at the expense of other women, like when her song Better Than Revenge slut-shamed women (before the re-recording) or when she encourages fans to take sides. These fans are also fiercely loyal but horrifically behaved and can quite frankly be unhinged. They have doxxed and harassed critics, including women journalists and creators. In 2021, when Netflix’s Ginny and Georgia included a joke about her serial dating, her fans flooded Antonia Gentry with racist abuse and harassment, and instead of uplifting another woman in the industry, Swift did not stop the abuse and never really has. Ginny and Georgia, created by a young woman, by the way, almost faced cancellation due to the abuse from Swifties. Swift maintains a curated image, while she does not do anything to curtail or deter the behaviour of her fans, who intimidate anyone who attacks this image. Her empowerment is actually just a weaponising tool that fans use to defend her at all costs, because how unfeminist would it be to criticise a White female billionaire who allows online abuse!
The steps Swift has taken to appear more empowering have only been reactive steps after public pressure, and the pattern is so clear in that Swift uses the brand to empower herself and her inner circle while sidelining women of colour and other critics and artists.
On her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, Swift appears to take a dig at Charli xcx in the track Actually Romantic, which people believe is a response to Charli’s song Sympathy Is a Knife. The lyrics in Swift’s track (“I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave / High-fived my ex and then you said you’re glad he ghosted me”) seem to mock Charli’s vulnerability, turning Charli’s introspective lyrics and anxious self-doubt into fodder for Swift’s own narrative. Plus, Charli had earlier denied any feud, saying Sympathy Is a Knife was about her own insecurities rather than a direct attack. Charli’s song shows the pressures female pop stars face and the expectation to always be on top, whilst being judged and criticised. Swift’s ‘response’ feels more like a power move instead of solidarity, and it’s defensive. In a feminism that claims unity, this lyrical jab shows how empowerment just means protecting her brand.
The ex-boyfriend whom Taylor claims Charli high-fived is Matt Healy, which opens up an entirely new can of worms in this Swift feminism saga. He has faced widespread backlash for racist and offensive behaviour, such as when he was openly racist about Asian people, which was heavily criticised by Rina Sawayama, who’s masters he owns. Taylor Swift not only dated him but also performed on stage with him. Healy later gave a half-hearted apology for his racist comments towards Ice Spice in 2023, but the damage was done. Instead of distancing herself, Swift went on to release a remix of Karma with Ice Spice, a move critics saw as an opportunistic PR ploy rather than genuine solidarity. Healy has also been criticised for trivialising serious issues, including joking about watching degrading pornography. By aligning herself with Healy despite his history, Swift signalled that her personal relationships outweigh the values her brand supposedly encompasses. It’s hard to claim feminist credibility while openly supporting a man who has a public bad track record of being racist and associating with other celebrities with questionable morals and racist claims.
Taylor Swift and political silence
Continuing, this odd approach extends to global feminist issues. Taylor Swift has remained silent on conflicts worldwide where women and children bear the brunt of violence. Swift’s political silence and her selectivity have been a sticking point for her critics for years. During Trump’s 2016 campaign, Swift stayed quiet, later admitting she regretted not speaking out at such a pivotal moment, and she has since tried to course-correct by criticising Trump’s “gaslighting” rhetoric in a Guardian interview in 2019 and endorsing Biden/Harris in both 2020 and 2024. She also speaks up when AI-generated images falsely imply she supported Trump, framing her endorsement of Kamala Harris as an attempt to shut down misinformation. Some Swifties also argue that speaking out too much could alienate her fanbase or put her safety at risk. She had already come out as anti-Trump years earlier, so it isn’t quite clear what she had to lose by vocally supporting Kamala more. When Swift does weigh in, the impact is significant — her posts could spike voter registrations, donations and community change just from the sheer amount of engagement she receives.
Swift’s interventions do come too rarely, and most of the time when the risk is low. She remained relatively silent during Trump’s presidency, and as previously stated, her activism often feels reactive and inconsistent with the feminist empowerment brand she sells. In practice, her feminism remains corporate, and she throws her weight behind things that directly impact her, like artist rights, and her activism has helped some other artists, but it has always been primarily for her own gain. For someone who has built an empire on the language of empowerment and sisterhood, her political voice remains close to silent. True intersectional feminism demands more than carefully curated endorsements and reactive statements.
In the end, Swift’s influence is not inherently feminist just because she says it is. Her environmental damage, her capitalisation of feminism, her willingness to tear down other women, and her silence on global injustices show that Swift embodies a narrow, marketable version of feminism that serves her brand above all else. True feminism demands sacrifice, solidarity, and accountability, and none of this can be found in Taylor Swift’s billionaire bubble. Unfortunately, her new album only solidifies that she amplifies a fake brand of feminism.
