Taylor Swift teaches young women the superpower of letting go of shame | Opinion

Memoirist Annie Ernaux once said that shame is “more detailed and indelible than anything else. Memory… is the special gift of shame.” Taylor Swift, who has become arguably the most famous person in the world for singing about heartbreak and broken relationships – and for speaking openly about how shame causes women to remain silent or diminish themselves – has said of shame, “Don’t kill the part of you that shames you – kill the part of you that shames you.”

Girls desperately need the space and grace to be accepted for who they are while navigating societal expectations. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that nearly 60 percent of girls in the U.S. experience constant sadness and hopelessness due to social media, bullying, toxic friendships, and threatening threats from boys. According to one study, fewer than 11 percent of girls in high school say they are happy.

We all know that someone like Swift—who has been questioned about her many romantic relationships and whose private life has been poked fun at—could have easily retreated from the public eye and allowed the cacophony of criticism to overwhelm her and make her disappear. While some men are indeed defended for having multiple secret romantic relationships at once, the idea that a woman who has had too many relationships throughout her life is “not a good role model” is a tale as old as time. But instead, Taylor Swift has become an icon for young girls and women, and even prison inmates, who has chosen not to shy away and continue to tell her relatable stories. Swift has taught us all that we don’t have to hold back—but can instead be proud of our relationship pasts, our cats, and our emotional well-being. At a time when the “girlboss” movement is losing traction and an “era of girls” is gaining prominence, Swift embraces the idea that women can be both strong and embrace their sexuality, and that their feelings matter in relationships—so important that you can become a billionaire by singing openly about them.

Even outside of women’s art, shamelessness is used as a weapon – by people who feel no shame under the guise of authenticity and credibility to relentlessly seize power and be absolved of any wrongdoing. Former President Donald Trump moves seamlessly between the campaign trail, where people see him as some kind of messiah, and the courtroom, where he is defending himself against multiple allegations of sexual harassment and fraud. Why? Because he knows no shame. He presents his flawed, imperfect self in a way that those who can relate to him see him not as an elitist or a con man, but as someone who is pure – a man who may even accept the imperfections of his constituents, who may be ashamed of their own economic situation, bodies, or life choices. His transgressions seem human, as someone with a “past” like the rest of us, whereas any other person or politician so exposed would see this as a shameful end to his career.

The same goes for billionaire Elon Musk. What other politician can stand on stage at a conference and tell off the very advertisers on whom his business depends? Performance artists like Musk act with little shame and confidence, but at the same time expect the rest of us mere mortals to be so weakened by our own insecurities, self-doubt and shame that we conform and never truly embrace free speech.

And it’s true that shame is still a paralyzing and debilitating feeling for many of us. We’re ashamed to share those “embarrassing” parts of ourselves, for fear that the parts of us we deem least lovable or least employable will ostracize us from the world. This resonates with some in Gen Z culture, who share their flaws and unvarnished versions of themselves on TikTok and feel no regret in doing so. 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 make right what they experienced, in their own way and without shame.

As a writer, I work with people—many of them women—who use storytelling as a means of processing something traumatic they may have experienced. Many of these women have been threatened and manipulated by unscrupulous lawyers into keeping quiet—because if they speak, they will be exposed as the undesirable people they are, especially if they are not the “perfect victim.” Many of them respond by using something Trump and Musk, or perhaps Swift in a better sense, have used—they simply ignore the criticism and accept their full humanity and truth, accept the flaws, expose the flaws. Telling the full truth is something those who threaten have no objection to.

Blatant shamelessness for all is not necessarily the solution. We would then act without much regard for others, colliding as the fullest versions of ourselves in a kind of chaotic soup of blurred boundaries. But freeing ourselves from judgement and mapping our most embarrassing moments onto our humanity is something we could all use a little more of. Our politicians claim to know the powerful truth we are all searching for. But if we look a little deeper, as Taylor Swift has done in her lyrics that resonate with so many, perhaps that truth is inside all of us.

Ariella Steinhorn, an author whose work focuses on relationship dynamics and power imbalances, is the founder of Superposition and lioness and co-founder of Nonlinear Love.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author.