I Didn't Know Taylor Swift, Misogynoir, and White Feminism Intersected. Here's Why I Do Now

Deconstructing the vital difference between silence and listening

What follows is a deconstruction of internalized racism, misogyny, and patriarchy, triggered by a controversy I stumbled upon online, about white feminism and Taylor Swift. I am sharing my process because I know there are others, particularly other white women, who feel deeply committed to antiracism, who are also sensitive, and who may choose silence over potentially saying the wrong thing. Receiving value from this post requires the ability to hold complexity and multiple truths at the same time. If you’re feeling fired-up or defensive, you are very welcome to come back to it later.

Read the fascinating history of this painting here

The Catalyst: I got on social media last night and discovered a bevvy of outrage over Taylor Swift’s new album. Black women were sharing how the lyrics landed for them; white women were defending the song, Taylor, and her reputation. Some were defending the Black and queer women themselves, the ones who had called Taylor out. The outrage had already formed a circle. The screaming and scorn required sorting. A lot was going on in those hot threads.

My bias: listen with curiosity but don’t speak, at least not first. Maybe not at all.

I am not surprised when I hear Black women aren’t Taylor’s fan base. That her music is too bland, too similar, and too focused on internalized emotionality, a historically privileged aspect of white women's experiences. But I was surprised to hear them weighing in on music they don’t like and the controversy itself, especially on the heels of conservatives attempting to cancel her for being too woke. I didn’t see it coming. I could tell it mattered to them, which got my attention. Their posts also felt daring, because the Swifties come like a Tsunami. And sad, because the world is breaking our hearts, and Taylor has been a force for net good, and I don’t want to lose sight of that, nor forget that sometimes, we need messy levity and to dance, and that we are not stronger women for eating our own.

This didn’t feel like my fight. (Not a hardcore Swifty, not a Black woman, not someone who argues online.) And my first inclination was to set it down, close the phone, and go to bed. I pace my outrage. It felt wise to let this one go.

The trouble was, I could feel the edge of “my work” at the edge of my consciousness. Sometimes that starts with an awareness that I’m self-protecting. Sometimes, avoiding a fight (or a sight) can be a form of avoidance that contributes to the problem, rather than the solution. Why was my heart beating so fast? Why did my bias of “silence first” feel like somewhere to hide?

Fear and Silence:

My experience as a sensitive (sense-aware) person raised in an isolated culture means speaking feels dangerous because, for many years, it was. I really hate making people mad, and the worst of that is when an “innocent” question brings verbal whacks, bops, and slaps. I come from a background where the violence was physical, too. It takes psychological work not to shut down. Fear of what I’m permitted to say will choke me in the comments online, but also in private conversation. My fear is historic and was inflicted by Christian white men who felt women should not talk.

But today, ironically, I’m aware I tiptoe on eggshells around women far more often than high-control men, and that awareness is something I’m watching, holding, and unpacking. The issue of policed tone and language isn’t unique to one group. It’s certainly not unique to men. To say some women scare me is true. I (unfairly) hold women more accountable than men, which is part of my ingrained patriarchy, and part of my hope that women will always hold and support other women.

No one likes getting their head bitten off. No one wants to feel the wave of misplaced anger come at them, the mob washing over nuance and tolerance, drowning out messages we need to hear. Silent listening offers information I wouldn’t otherwise have. Silent listening prevents me from centering myself inappropriately and helps me learn. Silence is often safe. Silence is also sometimes what’s demanded by those who have not, or perceive they have not, had their say. And then, staying safe and silent is criticized. And yes, this can feel dizzying and damned, no matter what. Yes, it’s often fucking confusing, and yet worth sorting out as someone who wants to speak up wherever or whenever my voice would be helpful, and quiet when it would not.

My solution so far has been to stay in my lane: speak to the people who are like me, doing what I’m doing, from the same place that I am from. Amplify, center, and support others telling their truth, from their first-hand perspectives, with their own voices. Choose words with wisdom and patience. Speak boldly only when I’m sure, and then, be prepared to take a deep breath, wait a beat, and stand with accountability for my words. Go after systems and their examples, not personalities. Sometimes, doors of understanding open. Sometimes, it hurts. Sometimes, I’m achingly misunderstood, a particular life-wound I find hard to tolerate.

I don’t think we really gain anything by speaking past one another. I don’t want my silence to become a cave where I withdraw and retreat from the world.

The Catalyst: I read and listened to several threads and posts criticizing Taylor, specifically for her song, “Opalite,” and the misogynoir woven into it. One of the heated conclusions: white feminism is killing us.

It felt like a spiked speed bump into a brick wall to me, and it was almost impossible to process on a day filled with headlines about Chicago, Portland, and Stephen Miller. It felt like everywhere I went online, impassioned voices were yelling about the danger we’re in. And now, white feminism is what’s killing us?

Knee-jerk reaction: Really? Other women? C’mon. That’s the thing?

I needed to back up. Separate the terms and essential points of the argument, and remind myself: precisely what is mysogynoir, how does it show up in subtle, covert, and overt ways, and where did the word come from? What did Taylor write that stunk of it?

Misogynoir, involves a specific type of misogyny that has roots in racism. Coined by the queer Black feminist Moya Bailey in 2010, the term is a blending of concepts that combines “misogyny” and the French word for black, “noir.” According to Ms. Bailey, misogynoir is the anti-Black racist misogyny that Black women experience.

—from BlackburnCenter.org. I highly recommmend following the link to this informative article, which includes a reading list of books by Black authors who address misogynoir in history and culture

The lyrics in question, from AI, and a search that points to an ongoing controversy:

That summary was generated by a machine for a controversy that is still being explored by the humans who created it. It’s likely incomplete and inadequate; I share it only for reference and overview, because what I’m really excavating isn’t Taylor Swift but my own reaction to the echo I couldn’t shake. White feminism is killing us.

Do I believe that? Do I understand that?

Naively, because I didn’t realize quickly enough that verbiage is evolving, I thought I was a “white feminist,” because I am a woman who is white who is a feminist. Are these becoming different things? I’m going to deconstruct it here in real-time, because it turns out they are.

If you don’t know: White feminism as a term includes the concerns and experiences of white women who ignore or deny the concerns and experiences of marginalized women. It erases intersectionality and our interconnectedness with each other, isolating and siloing us inaccurately. White feminism looks like white women fighting to get ahead, but leaving anyone not like them behind. It’s self-important and assumes supremacy, often without regard for the disproportionate harm others face as a result.

To examine white feminism as a white woman calls for open heart surgery conducted with our own hands. On the table: microaggressions, embedded patterns and rhythms, mean-girl laughs, deep scorn, stereotypes, hypocrisy, subtle othering, and inconsistency. Looking in the mirror, I think it’s fair to say white women who care about feminist issues but want to avoid emotional controversy are vulnerable to white feminism that centers self and leaves others behind. It’s no shock this would include a song lyric with a racist dog whistle, silent to the one blowing it, too.

The truth for me is that covert racism is part of white evangelicism, and one does not get far in deconstruction without confronting a history and presence of white supremacy within nationalism, culture, colonization, and faith. When it shows up (not if), it’s not news. It’s assumed.

How likely is it that Taylor has unaddressed racism in her words and behavior? It’s not far-fetched. She’s Southern, evangelical, embroiled for years in a patriarchal tension to regain her agency and voice, so busy she’s had little time to live her adult life, let alone deconstruct, surrounded by the subtle red pills easing us all toward MAGA, MAHA, and Christian Nationalism. I don’t have to put myself in Taylor’s shoes to imagine that; my own do just fine.

I, too, have had and likely will continue to find undiscovered, unwitting, embedded racism in my words and behavior. It happens for the ever-deconstructing. The best we can promise is to listen, learn, and address it. Root it out. Repair as much and as often as possible. There is nothing to be gained or grown from being defensive about it. Not being a racist person in a country defined by it requires active and ongoing work.

This is true for all deconstruction, relationship repair, and repentance. Awareness grows. Discoveries are made—actively. Understanding isn’t static, especially when it comes to systemic plagues and identifying ongoing harm and impact. It may burn to realize Taylor’s words carry another meaning, but sometimes we only know the cause of the injury by examining the wound itself. It’s a call for curiosity, not off-hand dismissal. Hold the wound. Care for it. Ask the wounded, “What happened?”

My bias: of course, that revelation is right. Of course, that’s worthy of examination.

My bias: I can’t attack other women. I’m grateful for feminism.

I am a cult survivor. Specifically, a white Christian cult predicated on a foundation of white supremacy, with an agenda to take over our country and return us to a racially segregated and enslaved society. They begin at home, denying rights to their women and children, but that is not as far as they’ll go. Marginalized women will hurt first and most, and it’s by design. My personal examination of what it means to be an evolving woman who is white and feminist and a cult survivor is entangled with that past, which is now seated in our present from the White House on down.

I know, like the color of the paint on the walls within our home in those years, a place I once called a “velvet prison,” what it means to be outside of the feminist movement, desperate for the work of women who fought for the agency, rights, and autonomy of all women.

Without feminism, I could not have gotten divorced. Without feminism, I could not have a bank account, custody of my children, or contraception. Without feminism, I would not have had domestic abuse advocates, financial support, a shelter to turn to, or the books on the shelf that educated me. I don’t think I’d even be here. Feminism offered a vision of a life outside and beyond the constraints of patriarchy.

I knew, from inside the cult, that I needed feminists and what they fought for. Financial agency. Family planning. Freedom to speak and write (readers of A Well-Trained Wife will remember I was excommunicated and formally shunned for writing, for refusing to put my writing in my husband’s name, and for writing about Mary, the mother of God.) Voting rights. Expression. Equality.

From inside the cult, any imperfections or even deep flaws within the feminist movement were invisible to me. What they’d battled to gain from the time of early suffrage forward was more life-giving than anything found in patriarchy. And that was before 2007, the year of my escape. How we discuss feminism, intersectionality, gender, inclusion, misogyny, and misogynoir has grown. Feminists are why we can argue about song lyrics and misogynoir online. Women got us here.

Feminism fought for all of it. That shit keeps a woman alive. If I have been self-centered in my feminism through the years, I’d be narrow and short-sighted to forget that it was because of patriarchy that I had no sense of self, and had to rebuild myself first, before I could advocate for anyone else. My temporary self-centeredness was not intentional or ideal, and all I can do is be aware of and accountable for it, and not allow it to harm others. To grow. To hold the system that creates generations of women without a sense of self accountable too. We can not stay there, allowing them to repeat and perpetuate these abuses.

Yet…both/and.

What I understand: Feminism is a reactionary movement. That does not make it blameless.

“Reactive abuse” is a fictional term; it is an accusation that deflects from the instigator, perpetrator, or provocateur who is really killing us. Let’s not forget the first point of offense: the aggressor, the enslaver, the overt supremacists giving the orders, zip-tying children in the night, raping, hanging, beating, systematically oppressing the people who are (understandably) reacting. Part of the harm done by the aggressor is what they create in the reactor.

By listening to those impacted, rather than benefited by “white feminism,” we can see there are wounds begging attention. There has been harm done by and within the reaction to patriarchy. We aren’t helping anyone by denying that.

Transgressions. Blind spots. Hypocrisy. Pedantic privilege. Precious biases, buried and protected under banners like “tradition” and “heritage.” I’ve seen enough of (and sometimes been) obnoxious social justice warriors that put their foot in their mouths without trying, and miss the mark on effective call-outs, to believe there are problems. I fully accept that women of color and queer women who feel the wounds of this movement most deeply should be the ones to inform the rest of us of the injury, and that it’s the job of the person who has inflicted the wound to address it and prevent further harm.

While I’m at it, may I remind anyone with their broad brush out: queer people are not necessarily identifiable unless they state their queerness. For many, sexuality is private and not what they lead with. Unless someone is overt with their status as queer, bisexual, gay, etc, or is wearing a giant pin on their shirt announcing “I’m a Queer Feminist,” we may not know one from the other. I encourage us to lean into that unknowing. As helpful as accurately naming behavior can be, labels and boxes often choke our growth, as all rigid fundamentalism does. If someone says, “Hey, from my perspective, this comes off racist,” just listen. Assume they have a perspective worth hearing without demanding they expose their private boundaries.

What I suspect: We, as a culture, and I, as a human, might do well to sit with the difference between silence that shuts down and listening, which is active.

What I crave: to keep the main thing, the main thing.

What I understand: part of our exhaustion is overwhelm, that we’ve been tasked with holding too much, during too much instability, and this is intentional by the regime.

Taylor is more than a pop star; she’s an economic engine of influence. We can not afford to glaze over or shame the work it takes to confront racism, even when it’s unintentional. If someone identifies a whistle, they’ve found something—the mechanism, if not the sound. It’s a clue to a bigger picture, a wider crime we’re collectively attempting to solve.

But I’m unwilling to turn on women as THE evil that’s killing us. As THE evil that gave us Trump. That’s deflection; part of the strange and ironic horseshoe of extremes and fundamentalism from another side. Trump voters are why we have Trump, and there are numerous reasons why we have Trump voters. Some of them are women. Some of them would call themselves white feminists. The issue is too complex for this/that. Even Christian Nationalists are divided into factions. Even Trump voters don’t fully explain why he’s in power; there’s money and tech involved, too.

My bias: A boundary against misogyny, misogynoir, mysandry, and reactivity. Curious and open to work that must be done. A commitment to ongoing improvement and responsiveness. Warmth. Humanity. Inclusion. A desire to put the brakes on vitriol and let those who need to speak be heard. I hope I model that in my work and personal behavior. I’ve been called out before, and I’m sure I will be again, and as painful as it is to feel the burn of someone’s judgment, I can’t examine if they’re right unless I hear them out.

The Catalyst: the indelible memory of what it means to publicly pass as a person with rights and privilege, while beaten and oppressed in private, complicit in patriarchy, knowing brave women were fighting for freedom outside. And the knowledge that the cult I ran away from is in power, now.

Comment section notes:

I recently opened my Substack and removed the paywall from ongoing posts, as well as the comment section. The shift is bringing in new readers, and I’d love it if you said hello.

For those new here: this column is primarily written to those who have left high-control religion and/or are seeking a translation of evangelical influences in our culture, news, politics, and headlines. I maintain my social media spaces to foster healthy conversation on those topics in support of survivors of religious trauma. It is not a space for debate or Christian apologetics. If you have a different viewpoint, your curiosity and questions are welcome.

Buy A Well-Trained Wife or preorder I Belong to Me: A Survivor’s Guide to Recovery and Hope after Religious Trauma

Upload your preorder receipt here to receive a free year of premium access to this column, as well as the preorder gifts releasing before the launch

Three Deconstruction Courses are now available:

Using Deconstruction to Live with Integrity

How to Outgrow a Fundamentalist Mind

Contending with Complicity