"Taylor Swift is off the market. She's engaged to marry the NFL player Travis Kelce in what will be the US's first proper royal wedding, and yes of course I know you're far too high-minded to care about any of that, but what's striking is how many people seem convinced that this is the end of any kind of interesting life for her."
"The fairytale ends when the princess marries the prince: who cares, really, what happens to her after that? Music critics are already gloomily debating whether marriage will kill her creativity, or whether she'll be left for dust by one of the younger rivals already nipping at her heels if she does take time out from music to have the children she's always said she wanted."
"Poor Taylor, mummy-tracked before she's even pregnant, like an old friend of mine whose engagement in her 20s prompted her male boss to tell everyone in the pub afterwards that that was her out for the count. He meant that she'd presumably have babies now and lose her professional edge right on the first count, very wrong on the second but also perhaps that she had somehow put herself in a different category: no longer young and promising, but practically matronly overnight."
Taylor Swift's engagement has triggered assumptions that marriage will curtail her creative output and commercial relevance. Music critics and media speculate that marriage or having children will remove her competitive edge and songwriting material. Women face cultural patterns of being 'mummy-tracked' or recategorized as less promising once engaged. Political commentators frame the engagement as ideological capitulation, ignoring past advocacy for reproductive rights. These reactions reflect broader sexist double standards that equate female value with youth and sexual availability and underestimate continued artistic development and interesting interior lives beyond marital status or age.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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