What do Selena Gomez, Cara Delevingne, Cindy Crawford, Hayley Williams, Lena Dunham and Gigi Hadid have in common? They are all part of the new Taylor Swift music video “Bad Blood”. If you haven’t seen it, (how could you possibly not have seen it yet?) you need to check it out.
Taylor Swift’s video creates an action hero themed video with all our favorite celebrities and the world loves it. No, really, it broke all kind of Vevo and YouTube records for views. This is the girl power video we have all been waiting for. Everyone wants to be a super hero but being one that fights girl on girl hate…pretty awesome. Swift shows us that women can work together for a common goal, the destruction of an office building, warrior women taking over the world, …badasses uniting.
The song is rumored to be about Katy Perry trying to sabotage Taylor’s tour for her album Red, and while we can’t speak to that, what we do know is that somebody got stabbed in the back. The sad truth is that sometimes jealousy gets the best of us. Whether it’s over John Mayer guys, careers, or general life issues sometimes women turn on each other. The whole point of the song, and the video, is that sometimes saying you’re sorry isn’t enough. So if you don’t want to bring a whole tribe of female super soldiers down on your head it’s probably wise to just NOT turn on fellow women.
And could this be a metaphor? Maybe. Let’s replace the backstabbing friend with current issues facing women like gender stereotypes and wage gaps, cyber-bullying and “societal norm” body images. It’s hard for one woman to stand up and battle these obstacles alone. But the more she builds her army by empowering women around her, their own unique powers meld together to create one awesome, world-changing movement. The whole video reinforces just how badass and successful women can be when we join forces instead of going against each other. One person is not always enough to take down such monstrous issues, we need a team!
These days, there are so many ways we can connect and support each other. Women create viral movements through hashtags like these, celebrities use their status to bust through the normsand show that they love the skin they’re in, and there are endless support groups for women found online but also face-to-face, and more. One common theme? Women are coming together to support one another.
Women empowerment is badass. What man can kick ass and wear heels while doing it? We can still have the sexy look, be successful and work together to make things happen. Instead of putting each other down, we should be complimenting each other on our successes and surrounding ourselves with women who encourage us to be a strong and wiser person. We all bring something of our own to the world, and if we accept our differences as strengths rather than qualities we need to compete with, the possibilities of what we can accomplish together are endless.
Now…how do we join Taylor Swift’s crew for her next video?
