Taylor Swift is just one of the many women featured on the cover of Time for their annual Person Of The Year edition. This year’s person of the year is not just one person, it is a group of individuals— “the silence breakers”— primarily women who helped “set off a national reckoning over the prevalence of sexual harassment.”
The cover image also featured— among many others— actress Ashley Judd, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, a Mexican strawberry-picker named Isabel Pascual and corporate Sacramento lobbyist Adama Iwu.
Taylor Swift recently won a sexual assault lawsuit against a former DJ who had groped her during a meet and greet, seeking only a single “symbolic” dollar in damages. In the closing statements for the case, her lawyer expressed his hope that this verdict would help set a precedent protecting sexual assault victims by law in the future, stating that the symbolic dollar had a value “immeasurable to all women in this situation.”
But besides known sexual harasser President Donald Trump, nobody received quite as much social media vitriol as Taylor Swift for her involvement with the magazine’s cover. Many did not think the pop star deserved a spot on the cover, citing the irony in naming her a “silence breaker” when she actively silenced journalists who attempt to write about her white supremacist fanbase as well as the fact that she never spoke out about the #metoo campaign on any platform. Instead, people felt that if a pop star was going to be on the cover it should’ve been Kesha, who spent the last year in court battling sexual assault against her producer Dr. Luke.
4. I know Taylor Swift was included on the cover to sell magazines, and I'm not going to take away from anyone's experience, but she has never posted on her powerful social media platforms about #metoo – not even once.
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) December 6, 2017
hi big fan love ur mag so sorry but taylor swift is only a silence breaker when she is directly affected ? she is an advocate for no one but herself..where is kesha on this cover ok g2g hate using more than 140 characters xo
— the tali lama (@notoriousTBL) December 6, 2017
Why is TSwift the pop star chosen for #TimePersonOfTheYear and not @KeshaRose? What happened to Swift isn’t ok but it’s not comparable to these women who were raped, harassed & emotionally tortured for months/years. #Kesha is a huge role model for women standing up for themselves
— hausw1fe (@hausw1fe) December 6, 2017
It’s kinda weird that “silence breaker” Taylor Swift tried to sue a blogger for an op-ed about white supremacists who like her music. ???
— Tyler Coates (@tylercoates) December 6, 2017
Taylor Swift doesn't get to market herself as a feminist icon. She has remained silent on anything political.
— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) December 6, 2017
i feel bad abt what taylor went through but she has been notoriously silent about 1 big harasser & legally threatens journalists who try to write about her white supremacist fanbase so idk what to say about this https://t.co/MLvjTREtXP
— Joanna Rothkopf (@joannarothkopf) December 6, 2017