Pop star Taylor Swift, who turns 30 on Friday, is unarguably one of the most influential artists in the world. With accolades like TIME and People Magazines' People of the Year titles to having the most amount of American Music Awards by an artist, Taylor Swift has proved that she is much more and much bigger than her songs.
Calling Taylor Swift a feminist force would be no exaggeration. The singer has time and again spoken up about issues that matter. Her activism that often overlaps with her art has always been about intersectional feminism, even when she is singing about artist like Leonardo DiCaprio being celebrated as ‘The Man’ for dating girls more than half his age, while female celebrities bear slut-shaming for whatever they do.
Or when she talks about LGBTQI issues and creating a toxic culture by pitting powerful women against each other. Taylor often talks about holding her head high and climbing the steep hill to success that is mostly white and male. In doing so, she inspires thousands to do so.
One of the biggest battles Taylor has fought in the public eye was the 2015 sexual harassment lawsuit that she filed against Denver Radio host David Mueller, who had allegedly met her backstage during a concert and molested her while posing for a picture.
The former radio-show host sued Taylor for $3 million in damages, claiming her accusations were false and cost him his job. The singer then counter sued the DJ for one dollar, to make the statement about how one could not get away with an act like that. In 2017 the jury sided in her favour. Taylor Swift's blunt testimony from the trial, where she spoke directly to Mueller and not his attorney has also been widely quoted as inspiring.
“Gabe, this is a photo of him with his hand up my skirt — with his hand on my ass," Swift had said, adding, “You can ask me a million questions. I’m never going to say anything different. I never have said anything different."
She was also asked about her security person not jumping in to rescue her while the act happened and she said, “I’m critical of your client sticking his hand under my skirt and grabbing my ass."
"I'm not going to allow you or your client to say I am to blame," her strongly worded statement was considered brave, gutsy and inspiring.
However, this victory was not personal to her. In the weekend following the trial, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) reported a 35 percent increase for its national hotline.
The singer’s battles, however, do not seem to be ending. The singer has now found herself in a legal battle with her previous record label, the Big Machine Label Group, where she recorded many of her previous albums and music manager Scooter Braun's company Ithaca Holdings, which acquired the label. This meant that all her old masters would go to Scooter Braun.
Taylor Swift wrote an emotional post on Tumblr and Instagram, where she called Braun “incessant, manipulative bully," who had, on more than one occasion, bullied the singer with his present and ex-client, Justin Beiber, Kanye West and others. She also mentioned that Scott Borchetta, the founder of The Big Machine Label did not let Taylor buy her own music.
The fight escalated when Swift took to Tumblr to write that Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun had not allowed her to sing her own songs at the American Music Awards when she was honoured with the Artist of the Decade Award and also use previous footage performing them in a new Netflix documentary on her life. This led to a massive online campaign, with not only her fans, but many other artists coming together in solidarity and support of the singer.
Taylor eventually was allowed to perform a medley of her songs at the Awards ceremony, where she also walked out with six awards, winning in all five other categories she was nominated in.
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