Taylor Swift is known as one of the most influential musicians of the last two decades, with a career spanning 16 years and a collection of 11 Grammy awards, including 3 album of the year awards. While she is undeniably a talented and significant artist, throughout her career she has faced endless challenges and criticism which, when examined, can all be attributed to the unrealistic expectations that are set towards women. When in the public eye, those standards are exaggerated in a way that highlights their impact. I aim to explore these expectations and how they can influence both the people dealing with them and young people who witness their pressure through the media, using Taylor Swift as an example. 

Among many who found fame at a young age, Swift’s career skyrocketed when she released her debut album at the age of 16. Bringing a fresh, young take to the country genre, she was quick to solidify a persona as a sweet, innocent country girl who simply happened to find herself on the billboard charts - an image that is easy to create but difficult to maintain when so many people are studying your life.

Right from the beginning, there is no winning for a young female celebrity - judged for the number of people she dated, she backtracked into a public group of celebrity friends and was immediately criticised for ‘excluding’ those who were not models. Told to be unpolitical due to her country audience, she was then labelled as ignorant for not speaking up. These are early examples of the hypocrisy that surrounded her.

The internet has always been quick to hate those who are successful for too long, and Taylor Swift was no different. Numerous ‘celebrity scandals’ were finally enough to drag her image into the dust. While the immediate response is to look at these so-called scandals and decide whether or not she was the victim, the simple truth is that no matter who was wrong or right, and no matter how she responded, it would have made no difference - female celebrities are constantly pitted against each other and in no situation has one of them made it out unscathed. The internet reacted in a somewhat ironic way; flooding twitter with angry messages and labelling her as a snake - a symbol that has been used against women deemed deceitful for hundreds of years (think the garden of Eden). Swift’s response was to vanish from the public eye, and to return with Reputation, an album that used the snake as a motif to make fun of the image that had been made of her.

While not as commercially successful as some of her previous works, Reputation achieved its purpose - using the image that had been forced upon her in a comical manner, eventually leading the conflicts to be almost forgotten. She has continued to lead a successful career since, but has expressed multiple times the effects that the online abuse she faced impacted her personal life and self image. 

While she may have temporarily won her way back into public favour, the cycle doesn’t end. And this is mostly due to the expectation for young female celebrities to be ‘the perfect role model’ for their young female fans - something that almost never ends well. There are consistent examples of the effect this has on mental health; Britney Spears being the most obvious. And this expectation is something that is never placed on male celebrities - most inappropriate behaviour of men in the public eye is swept under the rug.

Additionally, these expectations are a reflection of the standards set for women in real life; to be a ‘perfect role model’, people like Taylor Swift are expected to date, but not too often, be beautiful, but not vain, be independent, but not solitary - ideas that sound all too familiar for any woman.

In conclusion, I believe that the life and career of Taylor Swift is a clear example of the hypocrisy and prejudices that women face in the media, and is proof that women in business, music and life as a whole are judged for reasons that aren’t considered with men. The issues that women such as Swift have faced highlight my belief that the way we view women in the media is a reflection of how we view women in daily life, and that the need for change in these spaces is caused by the need for change in society as a whole.