Dear Taylor Swift, When Will You Stop Being A Phony Feminist?

Taylor, where are you? Are you okay?! Are you hurt? Legs broken? Vocal chord surgery? Brain transplant?!

Where could you possibly be that you weren’t marching with your fellow women on Saturday?

Taylor, you have a voice and platform. You have millions of followers on social media— everything you do or say gets picked up by the press and the media and turned into a story. Every song you release is dissected to death. You leave your house for lunch and you get photographed by hundreds of paparazzi. You’re on the cover of countless magazines, everything from Vogue to Tiger Beat (yes, it’s still around) and your name is splashed around the world.

Little girls, adult women and everyone else in-between look up to you. You have the platform to influence, get ideas heard and spark social change. Yet, you stay quiet.

Very quiet.

We didn’t hear from you much during the 2016 election. In hindsight (and as silly as it sounds) Hillary could have used your endorsement—or at least an endorsement from someone in your powerful shoes. 53% of white women voted for Trump—which, I can presume, is also the demographic of the majority of your fan base, as well as the individuals that you cater to the most.

You have privilege. Use it.

Or at least hire someone who knows how to help you use it. Because there are a lot of women out there who are turned off by the very idea of you and your brand of feminism.

You re-modeled your appearance and public image after the boy-crazy, breakup obsessed, romantic relationship loving-notion wasn’t resonating with your fans. Fuck the damsel in distress look, you said, making it clear that that was your former, much more immature self; I rescue me now.

So you did. You wrote and sang songs about having fun with your girlfriends—going out, dancing, not thinking about those vicious men who scorned you in the past. You’re no longer the victim of your life, you screamed—YOU make the decisions! You made sure that the public knew everything about your “girl squad,” that oh-so-famous group of you and your good-looking gal pals, who do everything together, from baking cookies to frolicking in oceans on private islands.

You know, normal girl stuff. No longer did you walk red carpets with a man on your arm, but instead you brought along 8 to 10 of your closest #BFF’s.

Because feminism, duh!

Oh and we can’t forget all of those countless pictures you posted on social media, of you with your various famous friends – the #girlsquad—everyone from the likes of Blake Lively to various Victoria’s Secret Models, to even well-known (albeit extremely random) actresses like Mariska Hargitay and Uzo Aduba.

Your brand of feminism is “all women should support each other.” Which is great, don’t get me wrong.

But, you say things that you desperately hope will make people believe you are a feminist, when your turn around and your actions then speak much louder and much differently.

Feminism is not about YOU, when you try so hard to make it out to be. You cannot pick and choose feminism when it is convenient for you. That’s not how it works. You cannot pick feminism when it helps you win Grammys, sell millions of singles, tell the world you’re now single and give passionate speeches about unnamed male bullies (cough *Kanye West* cough); and then not help feminism by speaking out against Donald Trump, speaking UP for Hillary Clinton, or marching and protesting against the likes of our new administration. You’re a feminist phony. A pheminist.

Then, at 2:10pm PST on Saturday, January 21, you finally tweeted something regarding the woman’s march:

https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/822929499851526146

Taylor, not only was this tweet published a full day after President Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration and 75 days after election day, but it was more than half way through most West Coast marches, well after the East Coast marches had ended, and hours and hours after overseas marches and the marches of countries all over the world had ended, as well.

Why only join in at the end when you could have been a part of the fight? Why not protest with your fellow sisters?

Why not march with us side-by-side?

A photo of you holding a sign exclaiming “My Body, My Choice” or “Women’s Rights = Human Rights” is a powerful image—and one we truly could have used.

Many of your peers chose to march, including Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande and Katy Perry. Even if these women were marching for press, the point was that THEY MARCHED.

Little girls looking up to them saw pictures of their idols marching in the streets, and thought to themselves “Hey, I want to smash the patriarchy too.” Did they say it quite as eloquently as that? Probably not. But what they most definitely thought was “It’s cool to be a girl”—and that speaks volumes.

Taylor, you’re choosing to exclude yourself from a narrative; one that we’re very much asking you to be a part of.

You yourself famously said, “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” Shall we start getting your room ready there, Ms. Swift?