Today, August 9th 2024, should’ve been one of the happiest days of my life that I’ve been looking forward to for over a year, ever since I somehow was lucky enough to secure two tickets to see Taylor Swift live for the first time ever in my hometown Vienna. Growing up, I would’ve never classified myself as a Swiftie (I eventually would end up joining the snake hate train in 2016, but we don’t want to get into that right now) – I only knew a few of her most famous songs, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realise how much of an impact her songwriting has had on me – from ‘Love Story’ and ‘You Belong With Me’, where I can distantly picture my first heart-aching school crush who liked my best friend, ‘Mean’ and ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ which motivated me to dream big and leave ex-friends and teen-bullies in the past, ‘marjorie’, that always brings me to tears and imaginary reaching for my Oma’s hand, ‘Is It Over Now?’ and ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’, both reminding me that it’s not just me who has an awful dating experience in her 20s, and many more songs which carry such specific emotional value and memories for me, every other listener, and Swift herself.
Needless to say, this unity predominantly consists of women and girls, who have either witnessed Swift’s rise from country fairytale to iconic pop stardom themselves or passed it on to younger generations. The Era’s Tour, which the American singer is currently on, has brought so many women together that even non-fans ended up wanting to buy tickets just to experience her amazing performance – over 3 hours long with multiple stage and outfit changes – and the heartwarming sense of community, from everyone swapping handmade friendship bracelets with each other to gathering outside the venues before the show to have dance parties.
Unfortunately in these past few weeks, the community has been tested, resulting in the death of three little girls – Bebe King (6 years old), Elsie Dot Stancombe (7 years old) and Alice Dasilva Aguiar (9 years old) – and multiple kids injured at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, UK, and a planned (but thankfully prevented) terror attack on three sold-out stadium concerts in Austria’s capital Vienna. What should’ve been a day and weekend of dressing up and having fun turned into a mourning and trauma-inducing experience for families in Southport and collective fear and heartbreak in Vienna. The events in Southport were soon overshadowed by men targeting other men and women as false information was shared online about the offender (a 17-year-old Catholic born in Cardiff, Wales) which led to a raging outburst that quickly resulted in racist and Islamophobic violence, not only on the internet but also in multiple English cities. As these far-right-riots even hijacked a vigil for the three girls who lost their lives, it became evident – it was never about them or the safety of women, it was about men wanting to spread hatred and violence in the name of their “territory” and their “land”. In Vienna, the main offender – besides three others between the ages of 15 and 18 – was a 19-year-old Austrian who had recently pledged allegiance to ISIS, a terror organisation from the Middle East. He and others allegedly planned to “kill as many people as possible” outside the concert venue, the stadium Ernst-Happel-Stadion. The one thing all offenders have in common besides their predominantly female target group: they are all young men.
Words cannot describe the utter shock, sadness and rage we have been feeling since. Many people have been questioning why Taylor Swift could be a potential target in this when she doesn’t even vocalise any personal or political opinions online or in interviews, but let’s look at this situation for what it truly is – she currently is the most successful artist in the world and she is a woman, therefore she is a target, and so is her entire fandom. Swift’s power in the music industry as well as in popular culture, along with everything she stands for, whether it be women’s independence, women’s rights or equality, is a threat to men who carry traits of toxic masculinity and bigoted misogyny. To those men, ALL women are targets. Always. Whenever. Wherever. It doesn’t matter if they are a 34-year-old pop star or a 6-year-old girl in a dance class. It doesn’t matter what they look like, where they come from, what they wear, what their ethnicity or religion are, if they are cis or trans. Women experience unwanted attention, fear, harassment, abuse and threats to their lives in any social setting or environment and any social class, all over the world. This is the frightening truth, and it is alarming.
“Boys will be boys” has to end here – educate your kids, start by raising them to show their appreciation for girls on playgrounds instead of telling them to be mean to the ones they like. Show them that they must open up, show emotion, talk and express themselves in healthy ways instead of punching walls, or each other, or shooting characters in video games. Show them what love and respect mean, and how to care for others, while simultaneously not being offended by someone else’s way of life or facing their rejection. Most importantly, raise them in a way they themselves can point out dangerous rhetoric and behaviours before they radicalise themselves or subscribe to certain podcasts or influencers that claim to teach them how to be an “Alpha Male” – when in reality, those are the kind of men no one wants to have anything to do with.
Something has to change. Whether it be through spreading awareness, looking out for warning signs and each other or voting accordingly in upcoming elections. Young girls and women deserve to feel safe no matter what it takes – in their bodies, their clothes, their ways of self-expression, at home, by themselves, around others, around strangers, with their families and family friends, in schools, in universities, in internships, at their workplaces, on the streets, in public and private spaces, on public transport, in taxis and Ubers, while travelling, at night, in broad daylight, at piercing studios, in tattoo parlours, on dates and dating platforms, in expressing their sexuality, in saying “No”, in asking for help, in relationships, friendships, healthcare, on social media, in sharing their successes/their failures/their feelings/opinions and stories, in dance classes, at concerts, on stage, and especially in spaces they created.
To quote Swift herself: ”Give [us] back our girlhood, it was [ours] first”!
Written by Vicky Madzak // photography courtesy of TAS Rights Management
GEM Magazine 