Taylor Swift, Dr. Laura and My Life

I went to the Taylor Swift concert with Bethany last month and had a ton of fun!  We jumped up and down and sang all the songs along with Taylor Swift, and bought concert t-shirts, and went home totally exhausted and happy.  We brought several friends with us, and Josh took a date- but didn't get to sit by us because we had tickets in different sections.  All in all, a great evening!

While I was there, I was looking around at the other concert-goers and was amazed at the ages represented.  There were 2-year-olds in cowboy boots and sun dresses with their moms.  There were teens and pre-teens, and college students, and 40-somethings, and even a few boys!  (One was wearing a t-shirt that said, "Because my girlfriend loves her!"  Haha!  Understood.)  I

 wondered, as I looked around, what it was that made so many girls, of so many ages, love taylor Swift.

And here's what I've concluded.

First:  She's just SO good!  Her songs are well written, fun to sing along with, and they cover the gamut, from "Today was a Fairy Tale" to "I'm not a princess... This ain't a fairy tale."  From "You're just another picture to burn!" to "Can he tell that I can't breathe?"  If you have a boyfriend, used to have a boyfriend, wish you had a boyfriend, or might one day grow up to have a boy friend, she has written a song about where you are.  And if your ex-boyfriend (or husband) was a jerk-- well!  She has a whole album for you.  =)

Which brings me to point #2:  She encourages girls to be girls-- and to expect boys to treat them like princesses.  She curls her hair, wears cute dresses, loves sparkly things, and announces from stage to sold-out audiences everywhere that boys "Shouldn't do bad things!"  and that if they do bad things to her, they can expect to be written up.  In a song, that is.  

She showed a mock interview in which a middle-aged woman quizzed Taylor about the way Taylor treated her ex-boyfriends.  The woman said she was concerned.  "If you are naming the guys you dated in your songs, why would any guy want to date you?"

Taylor said, "Well...If guys don't want me to write bad songs about them... they shouldn't do bad things!"  The stage lights went out and words began scribbling themselves all over the set saying, "They shouldn't do bad things.  They shouldn't do bad things.  They shouldn't..."  The crowd- of almost entirely women and girls, remember- went wild!  I wish I'd thought to look around and see what the few men were doing.  I'd love to know.  Did they jump up and down and scream, "WooHoo!"?  Or were they looking at their shoes wondering how they'd gotten themselves into this situation?  (Not you, Josh.  I don't think you were looking at your shoes.)

I know what I was thinking.  After Screaming and thinking, "YES!" and wiping my eyes, I thought, "Dr. Laura would like this girl!"

An odd thing to think in the middle of a Taylor Swift concert?  Maybe.  But maybe not.  

I've been reading 10 Stupid things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives, by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and thinking a lot about it.  Yes, she can be offensive on the radio, and no I don't listen to her regularly.  I don't listen to the radio at all, actually.  But I have heard her from time to time, and I agree with what you're thinking.  She should get some tact.  But I also agree with what she's thinking.  And saying.  Almost 100% of the time.

She has several points in the book- but many of them can be summed up in this statement:  Girls, get a life!  

She believes that if girls (or women) set goals for themselves and work toward achieving them, they will see that they are actually, in Taylor Swifts words, princesses.  And that they deserve to be treated as such.  Then they will stand up to the men in their lives and insist that they "shouldn't do bad things!"  She suggests that, instead of waiting to be chosen by a boy, girls go out and do the choosing themselves.  What a novel concept!  

I thought a lot about this.  From the time girls are small we are told to wait for boys to choose us.  The very fact that Sadie Hawkins dances exist, and that they announce "This next song is girl's choice" means that the rest of the time we are supposed to stand on the side and hope we are-- what?  Cute enough?  Smiling at the right moment?  Dressed right?  So that a boy will choose us.  We are not supposed to ask the guy out on a date.  Or even call him!  That would be too forward.  And have you ever heard of a girl proposing to a guy?  I haven't.  And I bet if you have it stuck out in your memory because of how totally unusual it is!

What does all of this say about girls?  To be honest, I don't have the answer to that.  But I do know that I like the idea of girls being someone they, themselves, can feel good about, so that they are choosing, at the very least, to say Yes to the princes out there and No to the jerks.  and when they kiss the prince and discover he is, in fact a frog, they can dump him back in the swamp, wipe off their mouths, and say, "Yuck!  He shouldn't have done those bad things!"  And walk away.  Instead of moving into the swamp with the frog.

Rebecca  =)

who recommends Graceling by Kristin Cashore