Moral courage can be found everywhere. There are stories everyday - large and small - of vulnerable people risking their jobs, their reputations, even their lives, to take a stand against abuses of power. If, to reflect the zeitgeist, Time wants to make it about women standing up to sexual abuse, who would argue against that.
But Taylor Swift? One of the most powerful people in modern music, with a personal fortune of millions... that's a choice for the front cover? What did she risk? What was on the line? A man grabbed her bottom and she won a dollar in court. And this is supposed to be inspiration for women to put their own jobs and reputations on the line?
Do me a favour.
I am not questioning the validity of Taylor’s experience or her story. What I have a problem with is what Taylor is being positioned as the face of a movement by being placed on this cover, because she won a lawsuit. She lost nothing when others have lost everything when they break silence, but don’t get visibility. Just look at Ke$ha, whose abuser was her record label boss. She took him to court and lost everything, including her career. She broke silence when there was zero room for it and got shamed into hiding. He even put a gag order on her. Why is she not on the cover?
Why is Tarana Burke not on this cover, when she’s been doing this work for 10 years? Yes, she is on the inside and gets to tell her story but she deserves to be on this cover, because if there is a face for the movement, hers is it.
What about, say, Terry Crews, who is a man who decided to break silence and that shit was major. In this culture of toxic masculinity, men speaking up about their victimhood is revolutionary.
www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2017/12/time-person-of-year-taylor-swift.html