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Taylor swift: Negating gender roles
"As a child, I always felt alive in places that offered me a chance to be beyond human"
Since childhood, we have developed a close relation with music. Be it singing Jingle bell all around the house or copying the way an elder speaks; our tendency to express our inner urges through the means of speaking is nonetheless phenomenal. Growing up, music feels like an ethereal substance the enjoins inner-peace and fortifies self-satisfaction, not to mention shape romantic lives.
Nowadays, especially this year, what encompassed our scrolls on social media is none other than the mind-boggling headlines of Taylor swift's charismatic Eras tour. As the first woman to accumulate a wealth of over 1bn $ dollars through music; what remains pertinent in herself is her ability to shine. No one can deny the diaspora of Taylor Swift, that gives rise to Swifties.
Taylor's Swift's music journey dates back to 2004,14, when she started her career. Later becoming popular through her breakthrough album Speak Now, Taylor Has captured spectators across the globe who are ready to listen everything she produces - pop to country.
Likewise, Taylor's music rests in my heart as well and I am accustomed to that - it lives in me, it describes me, it makes me. A person's individual experiences, life's troublesomes, and personality, coupled with one's abilities and dis-abilities all makes the fact to what music he/she listens to. Most of my male friends often consider me feminine, only because of what I listen to. Underlying the reality of music in the face of toxic, hetro-sexual ideas is challenging in itself. These taboos have nothing flimsy base. If you like Kanye West and I don't; I merely means you resonate with him and I don't. Gender is far more complex thing, complex enough that its intricacies can't be judged through music. Music belongs to no gender, no identity. What cis-genders need to understand is the reality that a cis-gender can like Taylor Swift and dislike Travis Scott. There is nothing wrong in it. The immense bully-s, shame facing people who admire Taylor face as being called GAYS, NOT REAL MEN, OR WOMEN is wrong, and a reprehensible act and certainly an act that perseveres society's old ideas and resists contemporary minds.
The idea is not limited to Taylor's music, but rather extends to every sphere of life; where men and women are forcibly moulded into shapes that they don't actually possess. What this toxic society is doing is destroying individuality, personal way of expressing one's identity, crumbling down the constellation of stars that one withhold in itself!
So whenever, one says you are feminine only because you listen to Taylor, you should give them a blatant response, and say: My life, my choice!
We need to build individuality, and de-construct gender norms and this starts from putting efforts into changing the minds of high-schoolers.
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This article describes my personal experiences of being bullied as feminine and no-man just because I liked Taylor Swift's music. Then I write how toxic gender norms are affecting individuality and personal growth.