On Monday, Taylor Swift dropped the video for her new song entitled You Need To Calm Down, and it’s safe to say the internet is not calm.
The ’80s-inspired pop-synth track is both humorously sassy and politically astute. Light-heartedly taking-down take-down twitter culture, the catchy anthem slams keyboard warriors and homophobic trolls, decrying them for “being too loud”. Taylor’s choice to turn a phrase frequently aimed at “stressy” women into a message about (frequently male) online haters is both savvy and feminist AF – and I am so here for it.
In fact, Taylor dedicates a whole verse to slamming how we, as a society, often pit women against each other: ‘We see you over there on the internet / Comparing all the girls who are killing it / But we figured you out / We all know now / We all got crowns / You need to calm down’. A powerful message about the importance of women supporting each other, Taylor is effectively calling bullsh*t on the patriarchal structure which tells us that there is not enough space for more than one woman at the top.
In this sense, the image of the crown is particularly powerful. Traditionally a symbol of exclusivity, it is to be worn by one woman alone - and therefore equates to a value worth being fought over. Studies show that girl-on-girl fights are based on a perceived lack of resources, over which women must battle to get ahead. The crown is a symbol for the desired object – be that a man or power-related resources – which seems to be in short supply.
The 2004 film Mean Girls is an exploration of how women play out conflict for these resources: Kady Heron and Regina George go head-to-head in a battle for a man (Aaron Samuels), popularity resources (‘Hot Body’ and ‘Army of Skanks’), and, ultimately, the Spring Fling crown. The film’s resolution, however, subverts these powerful feelings of competition. Kady’s decision to break the crown and share it exemplifies the (relatively revolutionary) idea that women do not have to comply with these patriarchal rules. It shifts the dynamic from women fighting over a crown to fighting their own internalised misogyny (and the patriarchy, obvs). We can all be queens. We can all be successful. And, as long as we stop playing by these rules, the film tells us, we can all win.
And this is exactly the message Taylor is spreading in You Need to Calm Down. But instead of splitting the crown (thereby arguably slightly diminishing its value), Taylor announces that they all have crowns. Each of them is individually killing it – and they are valued for the uniqueness of their stardom, as well as their similarity to each other. Crucially, Taylor’s use of ‘we’ (“we see you over there on the internet”) creates a sense of unity amongst these women: a clear refusal to be pitted against each other.
And it isn’t just in music that Taylor is spreading this message of women supporting each other. Only two days before this single was released, Katy Perry announced that her six-year long feud with Taylor Swift was finally over. This was one of the most-commented-on, highest-celebrity catfights of the past decade. Starting with Katy allegedly hiring Taylor’s backup dancers from under her (read: a fight over resources), Taylor then wrote a diss-track entitled Bad Blood. Katy Perry’s responsive track, Swish Swish Bish, was aimed at Taylor and included the lyrics ‘you’re a joker / And I’m a courtside killer queen’, perpetuating the concept that only one of them could have the crown.
Similarly, in Call It What You Want, Taylor wrote about how Kim and Kanye “took the crown but it’s alright” after their public falling-out in 2016. This new song shows how much her views on women being able to succeed as allies has changed: she literally says ‘we all know now / we all have crowns’. It is a new understanding of a different sort of feminism. A feminism which doesn’t unite as cliques to exclude or tear down other women (aka the Bad Blood music vid), but rather promotes women valuing each other and banding together against attempts to divide them.
Because what do catfights ultimately achieve? For the women involved – nothing. For the people engaging with ‘different sides’, and for the media promoting the feuds and speculating over the celebrities’ privacy? Well, it distracts. Catfights distract from meaningful discourse. They take oxygen away from more important issues (what happens behind closed doors in the music industry, the pay gap, LGBTQ rights), and towards petty, divisive gossip. It enables the patriarchal structure to remain in place as celebrities fight over a metaphorical ‘crown’ that doesn’t exist. For Taylor, renouncing her feud with Katy also provides room fully to engage in political activism (see her Equality Act petition at the end of the video). And calling society-at-large out on “comparing all the girls who are killing it” also brings this issue into consciousness.
Katy Perry once tweeted that Taylor was a “Regina George in sheep’s clothing”. How incredibly ironic that in-so-doing she was playing a very active part in the Mean Girl-catfight culture. In fact, Katy and Taylor’s arc is remarkably similar to that of the film. They played out their jealousy and distrust for each other, realised that each other were never the enemy, and have now decided to crown each other as allies.
Hannah Connolly is a freelance journalist. An earlier version of this piece appeared on her personal blog, and can be read here.