Taylor Swift Interview: 'I've Been Taking A Feminist Stance Without Actually Saying So"

What's basically become "Taylor Swift Week" got a little more interesting on Saturday when The Guardian released a new interview with the pop star.

Swift touched on TMZ, haters and friendships with women such as Lorde and Lena Dunham, but she also clarified her stance as a feminist:

"As a teenager, I didn't understand that saying you're a feminist is just saying that you hope women and men will have equal rights and equal opportunities," Swift said. "What it seemed to me, the way it was phrased in culture, society, was that you hate men. And now, I think a lot of girls have had a feminist awakening because they understand what the word means. For so long it's been made to seem like something where you'd picket against the opposite sex, whereas it's not about that at all. Becoming friends with Lena - without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for - has made me realise that I've been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so."

The 23-year-old star has been ultra-famous for several years, but she's finally learning how to cope in the public eye.

"In the last couple of years I've had to come to terms with the fact that anyone can say anything about me and call TMZ or Radar Online or something, and it will be an international headline," she said. "You can either go crazy and let it make you bitter and make you not trust people, and become really secluded or rebellious against the whole system. Or you can just shake it off and figure that as long as you're having more fun than anyone else, what does it matter what anyone else thinks? Because I've wanted this life since I was a kid.

"I am not gonna let them make me miserable when I could be enjoying my life. That's why you see these artists become a tabloid regular and then become artistically and musically irrelevant, because they let [gossipy websites] stifle them. It's not going to happen here."

Another interesting point of the interview: When Swift discusses the giant cliché that she's become to a large section of listeners who dislike her.

"I really resent the idea that if a woman writes about her feelings, she has too many feelings," she says. "And I really resent the 'Be careful, buddy, she's going to write a song about you' angle, because it trivialises what I do. It makes it seem like creating art is something you do as a cheap weapon rather than an artistic process. They can say whatever they want about my personal life because I know what my personal life is, and it involves a lot of TV and cats and girlfriends. But I don't like it when they start to make cheap shots at my songwriting. Because there's no joke to be made there."

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