The Taylor Swift Effect: Women Get Stronger, Richer and More Liberal, Men… Well…

The Taylor Swift Effect: Women Get Stronger, Richer and More Liberal, Men… Well…

The Big Shift in Gen Z World and Beyond

It is surprising how much of we call “government” is a product of amplifying, glorifying and protecting our “culture.” Folks might say that this statement is too obvious to merit statement, but even when you use the word “democracy,” it is amazing how far away from the traditional “majority rule while protecting minority rights” people’s belief systems can veer. It’s hard to justify gerrymandering and voter restrictions in so-called “democracies.” Likewise, it is difficult to understand how those purportedly embracing democracy will openly vote for an autocratic form of government, despite the abysmal litany of failed misery and conflict that results.

For those incumbents who have enjoyed privileges by reason of their cultural status or individuals used to making personal choices that might be counter to a powerful religious beliefs (cultural for sure), those wishing to maintain their privileges or extend their belief systems are vastly more motivated to force their culture on others. The missionaries converting the heathen was a major driver of colonization. The Spanish Inquisition was equally violent cultural imposition. The passion of mad believers often makes a disproportionate mark, like Carrie Nation pictured above in her late 19th century quest to purge “evil” alcohol from the United States. She and her followers pushed a strange ethos that, decades later, resulted in the 18th Amendment (which ushered Prohibition in 1920) that accelerated mob power, denied people what they had been used to for centuries until it was finally repealed (21st Amendment) 13 years later.

But culture changes over time, and those mired in some glorious and often misshapen vision of the past, often see themselves being “left behind.” The persistence of racial segregation today, although legally purged, is evidence of that tendency to see the “good old days” – notwithstanding wars, riots, profound shortages, unemployment, a dustbowl, slavery, Jim Crow hangings, droughts, crime and other hallmarks that have been erased (or faded) from collective memories – as vastly more joyful than they really were. Sometimes people need the truth to be replaced with versions of the past that more closely resemble how people want to “remember” that past. Those who remember are woke; those who erase are patriotic.

But we just might not fully appreciate a massive cultural transition in the role of women as one of the major undercurrents of social unrest this country has experienced in many decades. This roiling change had its share of ripples over the past 150 years, but a 6’5” muscle-bound hulk was being replaced by a woman with a modern machine (Rosie the Riveter, even in WWII) with equal productivity and could be shot dead with a bullet fired by a 5’2” woman. But those were ripples, and what we are witnessing today is the tsunami of women, once relegated to motherhood and homemaker roles as the cost of living now usually required income earners to support a family. That male “breadwinner” image continues to die slowly… despite its obvious obsolescent reality.

Pew Research noted: “[There is a] growing gender gap in higher education – both in enrollment and graduation rates… Young women are more likely to be enrolled in college today than young men, and among those ages 25 and older, women are more likely than men to have a four-year college degree. The gap in college completion is even wider among younger adults ages 25 to 34.” A March 15, 2022 report from the St Louis Federal Reserve Bank observed that as “fall college enrollment numbers came in, we learned that, for every man, there are now almost two women attending college. These numbers indicate the highest recorded gender imbalance favoring women seen in U.S. college enrollment.” Education is the leading indicator of future success.

A puzzled British journalist, Gaby Hinsliff, looked the rise of women in cultural power and values in a February 2nd piece in the Guardian UK, as reflected most effectively by Gen Z. The rise of movies like Greta Gerwig-directed Barbie can be viewed as just a comic success… or if taken as seriously as Gen Z female fans (often Swifties) certainly did… brought this most basic observation from Hinsliff: “It turned out Gen Z men held the answer… Where I saw colour and fun, they saw the reflection of something darker: a new generation of men who fear feminism….

“But if the political implications are alarming, there are more intimate consequences, too. Why on earth would the Swiftie generation want to settle down with men who seem to hate them, ranting on dates about how feminism has gone too far and scoffing at ideas they hold dear? The angriest Kens may be heading for the kind of lonely lives that, if anything, might only intensify their embittered search for easy scapegoats.” Indeed, there is a rising MAGA anti-feminism among a minority but growing of Gen Z men. But as history shows, they are on the wrong side of history.

An affirmation of the threat that powerful women pose for “traditional” men and women is illustrated by the conspiracy theory spin of MAGA Republicans: that music mega-superstar Taylor Swift is a pawn of the “Biden Pentagon,” a tool of the Democratic Party to usurp the perceived rightwing slant of football fans… her music laden with latent persuasion toppling conservative values. Swift’s call for her fans to vote, without telling them whom to vote for, created an explosion of new registrations. Her romantic relationship with a mega-football star, Kansas City Chiefs receiver, Travis Kelce, was constantly in the news with all sorts of conspiratorial overtones. That this uber-man, muscle bound and wildly successful athlete – the epitome of MAGA manhood – was now being paired with an obvious liberal superstar, rattled too many cages.

Kelce, no slouch as a millionaire football legend in the middle a very successful career, was dating a woman, a liberal woman, who had even more fans and earned multiples more income. Battle lines were forming, and young women were becoming our new cultural warriors. Nothing has pitted MAGA Republicans against the rise of power, influence and control by young women… like the Supreme Court’s anti-feminist reversal of Roe v Wade. MAGA Republicans panicked, noting that rise in womanpower and the obvious voting GOP nightmare that followed that decision. And no matter how near-term elections pan out, the only thing that can sustain old-world MAGA values… is a highly repressive dictatorship where older generations eat their young.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as culture is the greatest driver of any era, it fascinating to note that today, women are driving American culture!