The memoirist Annie Ernaux once said that shame is “more detailed, more indelible than any other. Memory … is the special gift of shame.” Taylor Swift, who has become arguably the most famous person in the world by singing about heartbreak and messy relationships—and through speaking openly about the ways in which women are shamed into remaining quiet or shrinking themselves—has said about shame, “Do not kill the part of you that is cringe—kill the part of you that cringes.”
Girls are desperately in need of the space and grace to be accepted for who they are as they navigate what society expects of them. A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report showed that almost 60 percent of U.S. girls reported constant sadness and hopelessness, attributed to social media, bullying, toxic friendships, and menacing threats from boys. According to one study, by high school, fewer than 11 percent of girls say they are happy.
We all know that someone like Swift—who has been interrogated for her many romantic relationships and had her private life put on full blast—could have easily receded away from the public eye, and allowed the cacophony of criticism to subsume her and make her vanish. While some men are in fact defended for having multiple secret romantic relationships at the same time, the idea that a woman who has had too many relationships in her entire lifetime and therefore is “not a good role model” is a tale as old as time. But instead, Taylor Swift has become an icon to young girls and women and even to prison inmates, deciding not to shrink away and to continue telling her relatable stories. Swift has taught us all that we do not have to shrink ourselves—but instead to take pride in our relationship past, our cats, and our emotional well-being. During a time when the “girl boss” is fading as the “era of the girl” is reigning, Swift tapped into the idea that women can be both powerful and embrace their sexuality, that their feelings about relationships matter—so much so that you can become a billionaire by singing openly about them.
Taylor Swift arrives to the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party on March 2, 2014, in West Hollywood, Calif.
Taylor Swift arrives to the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party on March 2, 2014, in West Hollywood, Calif.
ADRIAN SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ/AFP via Getty Images
Outside of women’s art, shamelessness has also been weaponized—by people who, under the guise of authenticity and relatability, feel no shame in order to relentlessly assume power and be absolved of any wrongdoing. Former President Donald Trump seamlessly alternates between the campaign trail, where people view him as a sort of messiah, and the courtroom, where he is defending himself against several sexual assault and fraud allegations. Why? Because he has no shame. He is presenting his flawed, imperfect self in such a way that those who relate to him see him not as an elitist or con artist, but someone pure—a man who might even accept the imperfections of his voters, who may feel shame about their own economic standings or bodies or life choices. His transgressions appear human, as someone with a “past” like the rest of us, whereas any other person or politician this exposed would see this as a shameful end to their career.
It’s the same with billionaire Elon Musk. What other leader can go on the stage of a conference and tell off the very advertisers who his business is dependent on? Performance artists like Musk operate with little shame and full confidence, but at the same time expect that the rest of us mortals will be debilitated by our own uncertainty, self-doubt, and shame to fall into line and never actually engage in free speech.
And it is true that for many of us, shame is still a crippling and debilitating feeling. We are embarrassed to share those “cringe” parts of us, for fear that the parts of ourselves that we deem most unlovable or most unhireable could ostracize us from the world. This is lessening some with Gen Z culture, who are sharing their failures and unvarnished versions of themselves on TikTok, and feeling no regret about it. And women in their 50s, from Brooke Shields to Pamela Anderson to Mariska Hargitay, have recently told their full stories, not as victims but as people who want to set the record straight on what they experienced, under their own terms, without shame.
As a writer, I work with people—many of whom are women—who use storytelling as a means to process something traumatic that they may have gone through. Many of these women have been threatened and gaslighted by bulldog lawyers into staying quiet—because should they speak, they will be exposed for the undesirable people that they are, especially if they are not the “perfect victim.” Many of them counteract this with something that Trump and Musk, or perhaps Swift in a better sense, has used—simply to ignore the criticism and embrace their full humanity and truth, to accept the flaws, expose the mistakes. Telling the full truth is something that those with threats have no offense against.
Unabashed shamelessness for all is not necessarily the cure. We would then be acting with little regard for others, crashing into one another as the fullest versions of ourselves in some sort of a chaotic soup of muddied boundaries. But freeing ourselves from the judgment and mapping our most embarrassing moments to our humanity is something that all of us could use a little more of. Our politicians claim to have the powerful truth that we are all seeking. But maybe if we look a little deeper, as Taylor Swift has done in her lyrics that resonate with so many, that truth is inside of all of us.
Ariella Steinhorn, a writer whose work focuses on relationship dynamics and power imbalances, is the founder of Superposition and Lioness and the co-founder of Nonlinear Love.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Source link : https://www.newsweek.com/taylor-swift-teaches-young-women-superpower-letting-go-shame-opinion-1919734
Author :
Publish date : 2024-07-01 13:36:06
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.