It was Super Bowl weekend. I walked around my room trying to put my baby girl to sleep while my husband scrolled through social media seeing the many Taylor and Travis news articles. The Super Bowl was coming up and I was excited to cheer for the Chiefs. I’m a big sports fan, but football was never my thing until my husband joined a fantasy football league last year and taught me the rules of this game I once thought to be very complex. I got into it. Football is great. A closet Swiftie for many years, I was used to hearing people diss the pop star for all the invalid reasons they could come up with usually stemming from insecurity or internalized misogyny. I came out as a Swiftie a few years ago and never looked back. But this year, something amazing happened: I first discovered the New Heights podcast with the Kelce brothers, then got into football, then found out Taylor and Travis were dating, to then finally watch the first Super Bowl that I actually cared about and the Chiefs winning. What a year. I’ll admit, The Kelces and the Swifts became my Roman Empire. They are my royal family. Shirtless Jason chugging beer and cheering on his brother is my silly Prince Louis misbehaving at the Queen’s Jubilee. I paced back and forth hoping to send my daughter off to dream land when my husband made a comment about Taylor ruining football. I stopped in my tracks so fast I surely left marks in the carpet. “And why is that?” I asked ready to hear another invalid reason why people attack Taylor instead of the actual underlying issue. Lots of back and forth brought him to admitting that his frustration was with the NFL, not with Taylor at all. “But it’s so much easier to blame the successful woman, right?” With only a few simple questions, he quickly took his words back. “Do you think Taylor Swift, of all people, wants or needs the sports stations to pan to her in the crowd?” “Do you truly believe Taylor Swift goes to the games hoping she gets on TV?” “What’s the difference between her and the wives of every other player in the crowd?” “Should she not go cheer for her man during one of the biggest games of his career to not upset sports fan who are actually annoyed with TSN wanting more views?” “If the presence of Taylor Swift in the crowd is making people turn off their TV and not watch the Super Bowl, are they even football fans?” “Wouldn’t a true football fan love that his sport or team is getting all this attention from a new demographic?” “Did you know that data shows women and girls make up 46% of the NFL fanbase in the U.S? Women aren’t just now caring about football because of Taylor.” “Why aren’t the Kardashian-Jenners ruining the NBA by being filmed on the sidelines every third frame but Taylor is surely ruining a sport that has been around for 150 years?” He got my point. There was a time where I would not have gotten into it over this. Sadly, there was time where these conversations felt like a loosing battle and I would just change the subject. But this was my husband, who I love and know to have an open mind, common sense and willingness to work on himself. But most importantly, my daughter was in the room. If there is any time in my life where I must speak up and point out sexism, discrimination or misogyny, now is that time. It started when she was born and will probably never end. It did not take much for my husband to realize what he said was wrong. He changed his view and made his point differently. He listened, understood, set his ego aside and though he’s allowed to be annoyed seeing sports stations capitalize off a player and a pop star’s romantic relationship and hoarding their news app with articles about it, it is not the pop star’s fault. Bravo. But not everyone would be so open to dissecting their thoughts, opinions and comments. I realized that the way I show up for women, the way I speak of women, the way I choose to celebrate successful women, the way I allow people around me to speak about women, and around my daughter, would have an impact on her self-esteem, her sense of self and her instinct to defend women or let them be slammed for no reason. If anything, I want her to be part of a sisterhood and a community where women choose collaboration over competition and have each other’s backs. But of course, that is not easy. Because no matter how many women around her have the same intentions as I, there will be men who see us as less valuable. That’s the truth. That’s, at least, my reality. There are rooms I find myself in where my voice is not welcome. I still stand in circles of men, next to my husband, and get talked over constantly. I used to stand there, knowing the information being thrown around was false, but choose to stay silent because I couldn’t stand being interrupted, cut off or ignored all the time. But now is not the time for me to stay silent. I have little eyes watching me, little ears listening to me, and whether I choose to speak out or to remain silent, I am teaching her to do the same. I left that conversation proud of myself for changing one man’s mind — the most important man in my daughter’s life. If I was a man, I’d be the man.
Fast-forward to last week when I wiped tears from my cheeks watching my daughter fall in love with music right in front of my eyes. The Eras Tour played on TV and I danced around holding my three month old fascinated at how she lit up, responded to the colours, the music and Taylor’s sparkly costumes. We had to watch album by album over the course of a few days, but that last day was incredible. Before I even pressed play, she knew exactly what it was. Her smile grew. She squeaked and squealed at Taylor singing on TV. I cry every single time. I dream of the day I can bring my daughter to a concert, make friendship bracelets together to exchange with soul sisters, and live an experience of a lifetime. Music has always been such a big part of my life. Growing up, I was a little entertainer; from dancing lessons, to singing lessons, to theatre, I did it all. I don’t know a version of myself that did not love music, that did not learn lyrics to a song after hearing it once or twice, and did not have to move to rhythm. As far back as I can remember, I loved music. Watching my daughter fall in love with it is the most beautiful thing I am witnessing only fifteen weeks into her life. We were leaving the house that evening so I stopped the show and ran upstairs to get ready. I handed my little Swiftie to my husband. I suddenly heard the show keep going as he decided to watch the rest with her. I was doing my hair and caught a glimpse of them in the mirror: my baby screaming of excitement and my husband, who just a few weeks before said Taylor Swift was ruining football, dancing in the living room to Taylor’s music.
The negative judgement towards women, very successful and powerful women especially, creates a divide. And that’s not what music is about. It’s about bringing people together. Implying that Swift is taking anything away from the sport of football is just non-sensical. If you flew a drone over the crowd walking into a stadium to see Taylor’s concert, there are fathers, brothers, boyfriends, uncles and guy friends wearing Chiefs gear, but not a single woman there will tell you Chiefs fans are ruining the Eras Tour. All are welcome. Taylor obviously did not ruin football, but she did create that special moment between my husband and my baby girl. There he was, dancing in the living room with his little Swiftie. And just like that, Taylor’s music became even more important to me, because on top of everything this woman does, she also brings fathers and daughters together. She did that with football, where some dads had their little girls snuggled next to them for the first time this season, joining the 84 million female fans the NFL already had in 2021. And she does it with her concerts, where men proudly bring their daughters to the show and now get to wear their football jerseys. That’s what matters. I’m grateful my husband is willing to learn, correct, improve and be mindful of what he says about women as a girl dad. This version of our family, where we hold each other accountable for her, we watch football together and my husband rocks out to Taylor Swift with our baby girl… that is our family’s best era yet.
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