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My favourite singer taylor swift essay
Gender roles in society and culture
Gender roles in society and culture
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The End of the Damsel in Distress
In today’s day and age, society is working to conquer issues involving sexism, gender roles and is promoting female empowerment. However, I recognize that there are still articles of media that continue to portray women based on outdated gender norms. One culprit of this heinous crime is the song “Love Story,” by Taylor Swift. While some may consider it to be nothing more than mainstream country music sung by a hopeless romantic teen, the message of the song raises some questions in my head. The portrayal of women involved in a relationship through Taylor Swift's song, “Love Story,” encourages outdated gender roles and inaccurate female stereotypes, which take a toll on the self identity of women and prevent societal norms from advancing.
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I know for a fact that it either has the ability to empower or discourage current issues. Taylor Swift’s fan base widely consists of a female majority, the bulk of them being adolescent girls. As an artist and an influential person in the media, her lyrics can go beyond simply being a source of entertainment. It misleads young girls. They are put under the impression that they should approach relationships in the old-fashioned way: Waiting for the male love interest to make a move, being hopelessly in love with him, and waiting for him to come to their rescue. This false perception of “love” can be extremely detrimental to their self-confidence, self identity, and cause insecurities to arise. I mean, what girl wouldn’t want a perfect fairytale ending with her bright and shining knight to save her,
Trina’s intent was to create a song that liberated women from the double standards and stereotypical views placed upon them. Her song however can cause harm to young women that listen to take this song to heart. Instead of liberation, we are moved further down into the hole of degrading and devaluing women. Trina should’ve sent the message that these things were wrong. Instead she endorsed and encouraged them.
In the world of music, billboard and celebrities, Taylor Swift is no guest to the industry that made her famous over the years. From a talented teenage girl from Nashville, to a 25 year old pop queen whose net worth is $200 million. From her talents in her song-writing about love, relationships and guys, she has gained the likes of millions of people all over the world through her music. Her music inspires many teens and young adults through her own personal relationships and feelings that she freely expresses in her songs. With numerous awards for her songs and music videos such as “You belong with me” that won her the best female video at MTV music Awards in 2009, she has become a well known
Taylor Swift’s debut album contained such songs as Our Song, Teardrops on my Guitar, and Picture to Burn. Swift’s approach is perhaps more country than the Dixie Chicks in a few regards. The banjo is featured throughout the record and more traditional country percussion, as well as more country-style lyrics. However, she stands out with a crystal-clear voice and excellent use of metaphor throughout her songwriting. In terms of musicality, Swift may not be the most gifted, aside from her voice. But in her songs, her personality shines through in a way that pulls light through into your ears, noted especially in her song Love
Throughout our society, gender essentialism has manifested itself in many ways, one of which is through music. Risman (1988:2) writes, “Essentialism is the assumption that basic differences in orientation and personality between men and women are rooted in biology and nature.” Gender essentialism has four key parts: 1) sex differences are based in biology and nature, 2) sex differences are fixed/innate, 3) men have deep unseen properties in common because they look alike, and vice versa with women, and 4) categorization is exclusive (Taylor 2017: Week 1 Day 2). Beyonce’s
...ause of their own free will. The theme of love is widely portrayed in the world. Love matters because it is what ties two people together through commitment and pain. However, there are those who pervert the idea of love and treat it as if it is filled with lust and pleasure-seeking opportunities. In society, young and reckless people “go out” with each other because they are desperate for excitement in their lives. Those who “go out” fail to realize that they shouldn’t be so committed to one another. Therefore, it is a waste of time at such a young age. Those who do should be paying attention to reality instead of their own fantasy. If adolescent people have love, it is only a hindrance from being who they want to be. In conclusion, love influences people to behave irrationally and to take chances that would otherwise seem irresponsible in the eyes of the mature.
“A good relationship is more than something we want—it’s something we need to be our happiest, healthiest, most productive selves.” A relationship is suppose to be surrounded with love, commitment and happiness but when that is all taken for granted, some relationships turn into abuse, which is a problem all across the country. Relationship abuse can be physical and emotional but either way it can tear your other half apart. Kelly Rowland tackles the issue of relationship abuse with her song “Dirty Laundry” using a feminist lens.
It has been played in many other countries and is listed in many major hit charts in those countries. It became one of her best-selling singles. Beyoncé has been singing about women’s independence since she was in the hit group “Destiny’s Child”. Many of her songs support women’s lifestyle and keep cheering up girls with her powerful and expressive vocals (Armstrong). In addition to her songs and lyrics, her beautiful appearance fascinates many female audiences and influences from teenagers to grown-ups as if she was a role model. A negative side of the video is that the video gives the impression that men are always to be blamed and women are always “victims” of the relationships, which is not
The re-invasion of pop music has brought out the theme of love and relationships even more so then ever. If a songwriter has “writer’s block”, then the simple solution is to write a love song. “All I want is you (Come over here baby). All I want is you (You make me go crazy)... I‘m gonna love you right...” (Aguilera), is part of the chorus to Christina Aguilera’s song “Come on Over”. The attraction to this song to girls is in thinking that they could be in the situation of the female character in the song, finding the perfect guy and spending time with him. For guys, the attraction comes because a beautiful girl is singing this and they can pretend that she is singing to them. Something similar is also found in the song “Doesn’t Really Matter” by Janet Jackson. In this song she is stating all the things she loves about a certain individual. She can live with his imperfections and doesn’t care what anyone else cares. “Doesn’t really matter what the eye is seeing. Cause I’m in love with the inner being. And it doesn’t really matter what they believe. What matters to me is you’re nutty, nutty, nutty for me.” (Janet Jackson) This song is good in that it is a love song unlike many out there today. In this song we see that the main character loves her man because of who he is.
The effects of objectifying women in music videos are entirely negative. Women grow up with the idea that they should always seek to attain a men’s attention. Hip-hop music videos do not represent females as the human beings that they really are. This creates an inequality o...
Rape is one of the most frequently committed crimes in America, but is rarely ever talked about. According to the National Violence against women survey, one in six women and one in thirty men report having experienced an attempted or completed rape (Starre, 2014). We have millions of songs that discuss almost everything you can think of including drugs, money, significant others, and even divorce but just about a handful that really talk about rape. Out of the few, I ran across a song called “Quarterback” by Kira Isabelle. This song is in the country genre but we all know that country music has that twist of blues and folk so it really gives off that feeling of loneliness and desperation. Isabella wrote the song to emphasize date rape that
Swift’s debut song isn’t like the others. Her big debut song wasn’t about revenge or heartbreak, but rather her inspiration, Tim McGraw. ‘Tim McGraw” was written in Taylor’s math class when she was 16, along side of Liz Rose. Not only does it remind her of her true inspiration, but also of her un-named summer love, who was going to college, and had to dump Swift. But, not only was this her big debut, it also happened to be her first ever published song. It was published June 19, 2006 by Big Machine Records, and has sold over a million downloads. It reached about 40 and 6 on the “Billboard Top 100” and “Hot Country Songs” in the United States.
There is a direct relationship between what is portrayed in music and the effect it has on its audience. Generally speaking, in modern music, woman have been placed in a certain mold. The molds portrayed in music have caused women to have negative self-perception. Through the lyrics presented in the songs and the images portrayed in the music videos, certain hip-hop songs may cause women to view themselves in the same light portrayed in the songs. The tone, lyrics, and images presented in the songs effect the intended audiences immensely. Hip hop music that objectifies black women negatively affects their self-perception because they view themselves as commodities.
To begin with, romantic movies mold expectations of what love is really like. They portray that love is the only thing that matters. In the past, love was secondary. Relationships were arranged by parents because they wanted their children to join lands or kingdoms, and whether or not the couple actually loved each other was irrelevant. Today, parents have almost no say in who their children fall in love with. Romance movies over-emphasize love when it comes to “falling in love at first sight” and the idea that “true love conquers all”. I’m sure that almost everyone knows that real-life love doesn’t work like this, but that doesn’t mean that those illustrations of love that movies characterize doesn’t affect viewers’ hope for romance and true love in their own life. For example, after watching The Notebook, viewers might portray Noah’s l...
The lyrics of music play an important part of interpreting the meaning of the song. The roles which women have been allowed by the society to embody have changed drastically. Women may question their roles because of what they see portrayed by popular culture or media. Change in female’s identity can be seen in how women are viewed or how they portray themselves in popular culture specifically through music. In general, music continues to...
At the young age of just twenty-four, singer/songwriter Taylor Swift has already made her mark on the world. With four platinum records, several hit singles, and seven Grammy Awards, the young songwriter has been a source of both entertainment and inspiration for people of all ages. Unlike other artists, Taylor Swift is completely fearless with her songwriting. Whether she’s singing about her first day of school, falling in love, or breaking up with a boyfriend, Swift always shares intimate details about her personal life in her lyrics. Many people love this quality about her, but others think Swift gives women a bad reputation by appearing to be a flawless and blameless victim in her songs. Regardless of the negative thoughts some people have about her, Taylor Swift is undoubtedly a huge success and a role model for teenage girls all over the world.