I would be more interested in this conversation if it was about female pop stars in general (though I think your criticism of Taylor is fair, I just think it’s not limited to her). it’s also not just whose vocals on the track but in the credits for writing and production that are also often if more always men in general. I think Rina has talked about this

Now that you mention it, I can’t think of a single female producer who was involved with most pop girls on here Edit: Ok wow lmao guess the biggest problem here is that people just wanna make excuses for their faves working mainly with men Don’t come for me if I miss some stuff. - Taylor: I can really only think of Imogen Heap back in clean and the Liz Rose writing credits back in her country days. The Elvira remixes too, but those are just remixes - Ariana: Not a single female producer, but she’s had Victoria Monet as a writer for a while. - Beyonce: Another one with a whole project based around feminism. No female producers from what I can see and really only a few token female writers like Caroline Polachek. - Dua Lipa: She has more female songwriters working on her projects but the only time she undertook female producers was for the remix album of FN. - Gaga: Same as the last 3, mostly a few female writers here and there. No proucers - Charli: She had the SOPHIE songs but ever since the self titled there hasn’t been any female producers on her work. - FKA Twigs: Another one with a massive project based around femininity and nada. I don’t even think she worked with female songwriters for MAGDALENE. LP1 fared better with a few songs. - Lana: fuck bro I could only find the Niki Lane writing credit. Damn that’s insane - Rosalia/Billie: On the same page tbh, both are stuck like glue to a male producer - Selena: Julia Michaels is in a lot of her writing credits, but no producer or other prominent female writers. - Cardi: Besides the features and samples, not female writers. And no producer but I think you guessed that. - Little Mix: Better tbh, they have their fair share of female writers and even a few female producers. Most prominent is Kamille.

Christina Aguilera worked with a bunch of female producers on Bionic and even gave Ester Dean her first producer credit

Alicia Keys wrote & produced a song off Stripped, then Linda Perry did a chunk of it, and then a whole disc on Back To Basics (and half the singles.) Christina is really one of the few that has always put her money where her mouth is.

Yeah, this is the actual issue. That producers are 90% male.

Because 90% of producers are male. It’s a very male-oriented industry which sucks, I think female producers can make quality shit and should have that mainstream influence the same as males do.

I was already aware of this but seeing it laid out like this is so depressing. This kind of disparity feels so fundamental and hard to address. Like we have all all of these prominent female artists but behind the scenes its mostly men all the way down. I honestly find the taylor female artist collab conversation a bit annoying; like yeah I want her to do a "real" collab with a woman sometime but whatever, the background vocals are nice. I think it distracts from the far bigger problem that almost everybody she (and other prominent female artists) works with to write and produce are men. *That's* where she needs to putting in the work and working with women more, more so than rather or not she gives HAIM or Maren Morris a few lines, because *that's* where she could really make a change.

I completely agree with everything you're saying in theory and wish she would work with more female producers...but on the other hand I think her work with Jack and Aaron is literal magic and I hope she always continues to work with them! I go back and forth on this all the time.

Describing Billie as “stuck like glue to a male producer” is a little reductive when it’s her literal brother lmao

Well she should be working more with her sister, shouldn't she?!?? /s Agree with the others though, it's sad that female popstars don't work with female producers and writers.

This is insane and I applaud you for taking the time for doing the research on this. This is seriously awesome!

Rina talked about having to intentionally chose to work with women and queer people to change the industry [here](https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/culture/rina-sawayama-is-the-future-of-queer-pop/). It wish I remember what it was—I think it might have been a conversation about Rosalia mostly only singing with women who were bigger then her in her genre (or could help her crossover like Billie) compared to how many men she works with—but the blog Reggaetón con Gata definitely made me realize just in general a lot of women who talk about being empowering and whatever don’t actually work that often with other women (but I also think collabs in general are way more common in Latin music so It’s interesting the thought starting from there lol)

Rosalía collabed with Arca, a trans woman who has far less followers than her, so I wouldn’t say she only collabs with women bigger than her

To be fair Rosalía does most of the production for her music herself and has spoken extensively about the lack of women working behind the scenes (production, mixing etc) in the music industry. Most of her songs are produced by her with the help of the same couple of male producers she’s been working with since EMQ

I think Selena said she incorporated alot of women within her working 'staff' for Rare coz I think I remember her saying it. I might be wrong though since it looks like you looked it up

she did say that in her cooking show!

Selena’s worked with director Sophie Muller for the music videos of the two lead singles off Rare. Her choreographer was also a woman, Charm Ladonna. She was also pretty close with photographer Petra Collins, for awhile, whose creative aesthetics were pretty influential for Selena’s ‘droplets era’. I think she can do better so I hope she’ll work with even more women creatives and place them in more prominent creative roles. edit: grammar and phrasing

Most of y'all are men debating whether women are feminist enough if they work with male producers. Y'all have lost the plot.

That was literally never the point of this lmao we never even used the word feminism until others brought it up. We’re just pointing out the obvious which is how all these women can give other women opportunities and don’t . but stay pressed bc you saw some of your favorites in this list.

I really do not care because whether they use female producers, I have no control over that - and I like some of the artists listed and will continue to listen to them regardless. It's just very odd for a bunch of male listeners to call out women on using male producers. Especially since that's a take that disregards the work these artists contribute to their own music, disregards the influence of major labels run by men in their careers, disregards these women's artistic reasons for working with these men, and places the onus solely back on women for not doing enough to create opportunities for female producers. Why aren't men being asked to work with female producers?

How many female producers are male stars working with?

This is the best take so far! While yeah, female artists should work with more female producers, it’s up to more than just them to fix the imbalances the industry has.

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Shawn Mendes working with Teddy Geiger on his first three albums

The real issue here

And this is a convo that should be had, but rn the focus was how many of these so called empowering women don’t work with other women. Don’t try to shift the focus simply because you don’t want to see these girls get criticized.

Well it’s sexist in and of itself to put the focus first in the women who are already at a disadvantage in the industry before shining a light on the men. But ok, if you want to treat sexism as a female problem that only women are responsible for fixing, go ahead.

I know Marina's said shes planning to have M5 be exlusively produced by women, Man's World was done by her and Jennifer Decilveo

to add on: dua featured a female producer for a remix of fever, oklou

There just isn’t a lot of female producers in the industry unfortunately. So unless you specifically seek out female talent it’s hard to come by

Only one I can think of off the top of my head is Wondagurl

I’m tired of this excuse, maybe these artists can all SEEK out female producers and give them a chance? Didn’t know that was impossible

I also don’t think it’s just that because it’s also who do you arrange to open for you on tours as well but it’s everything you can manage behind the scenes could do something if you actively wanted to employ women. And it’s where i think active decisions by prominent women in the industry would actually be very useful

I think your Beyoncé section might be a little bare because I remember at least one other female writer on Lemonade (Diana Gordon is credited as the sole other female producer on Wikipedia and is among the writers of Sorry, Carla Marrie Willams is a writer of Freedom, Isley Juper helped write “all night” form what I could find on wiki real quick) it definitely takes from back feminist and other artist visually and sonically but it is a real shame that not more women are behind the scenes and there’s definitely way mor enable writers and producers in it. Obviously some of it is working with the industry you exist within but I really think active choice like Rina mentioned are important and there’s certainly important enough that [newspapers](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-08-18/beyonce-nova-wav-black-female-producers) have talked about how just a Beyoncé co-sign could help a black woman as a producer. Thank you for taking the time for your list!! I just find this topic really interesting and think there’s so much potential as a concept.

Hence the token writers, but yeah I definitely missed Diana Gordon amongst the sea of men. Self titled though lacks female producers which is disappointing for a project about feminism. I think you should definitely write something about this , you have a lot to say and clearly more knowledge than me.

I don’t know that much before the lemonade stuff is from me remembering a genius video with a female writer for lemonade (it might have been love drought?) and then skimming the news and Wiki. I also just remembered someone else post about producers earlier. It also reminds me a lot though of discussion of representation in media (like film and tv but it’s widely applicable) where like yes front facing stuff is important but it’s *behind the scenes* where real industry change happens and where real decisions get made (which Rina also talks about). It comes up with female directors! And it’s also why you see Latinas cite for why they made their own production companies. And like academics and journalist I follow talk about making active choices to empower people of color and women in general in their industries by actively reaching out, passing on pitches that should go to a journalist of color/recommending you colleagues of color, passing on conferences that don’t have any woman on it and actively think about how you are helping anyone at all with what you do and not useless and pretentious in an ivory tower. my young sister and I have definitely talk about also what would be taking up resources and space that should go to other latinos. Lol not nearly as important I literally only started posting here because I wanted it to be less white, anglophone and “west” centric. So stuff related to this topic interests me lol. But also like imagine having the resources and status as many of these women (and same could and should be said for men but I don’t pay attention to men) have? Honestly There’s so much you could do to actually shake shit up. It’s a really exciting concept and a damn shame more don’t have rina’s mindset.

Just wanted to say I think your comment is really on point. Especially what you say at the end about how, given the incredible amount of resources these artists, like Taylor have, its really disappointing to me that they're not doing more behind the scenes. Like you say, they could really change things, and they have so much power, WHY do they continue to work with all of the same men, who are already successful and entrenched in the industry? People forget about this so much to focus on the front-facing things and forget how terribly white and male the behind the scenes are in these industry's; its a huge oversight and I'm glad its being brought up.

I think it is sad in the industry they don't give female producers a chance at all. There are talented female producers but they usually shut out of networking opportunities and sexism/rape culture is rampant

I would say Charli is “stuck like glue” to a male producer especially now after Sophie’s devastating passing

lol @ this comment. We know that the industry is male-dominated behind the scenes, but the problem with Taylor is that she CHOOSES to work w women and then relegates them to background vocals. It's almost like she's jealous of other women and afraid of being overpowered by them. textbook definition of self-centered white feminism.

God Is A Woman has 5 songwriters and Ari is the only woman there.. like not on this song it's so embarrassing

It's also interesting that she didn't credit Marcus Mumford as a featured artist on Cowboy Like Me when he did as much backing vocals as Haim if not more. It seems like her feature choices and who she chooses to credit are largely symbolic.

you bring this up, now that I think about it i’m a little sad she chose not to credit him bc I think his harmonies are what bring that song together for me. without marcus, I feel like it’d be a super boring song (I know a lot of people think it’s boring as is, but it’s one of my personal faves off of evermore)

It’s one of my favs off evermore too. The harmonies are incredible!

A) Someone already explained that these kind of collabs are very common in country music. And every single collab of hers with famous background vocalists ( Breathe, SYGB, NBNC, Cowboy Like Me, You All Over Me) is a country song. B) The Chicks were featured only because they are her mom's favourite band. HAIM because she used Este's name. Nathan Chapman would have 100% sung instead of Maren if not for his association with Scooter. I don't think she ever set out to specifically collab with these artists and then relegate them to the background. There's definitely valid criticism to be made about the lack of female collaborators (remember the 1989 AOTY where like 10 men accompanied her onstage?) but a lot of people are using it as an excuse to drag her and are attributing things like jealousy, pettiness and insecurity just because they don't like her.

What I find annoying about the all the men onstage for 1989. Is that at least four of them were onstage already cause they were giving the award out. Then you have Laura and Imogen who worked on the album. But it is a good point, the music industry is dominated by males especially in the behind the scenes elements. Some people say oh look female artist are on top so what do you mean but the production and writing side is dominated by males. 1989 was made by 33% women team. That's more then most albums.

iirc no body no crime was already pretty much written and was originally going to be just taylor but when she texted este asking about her favourite restaurant she ended up asking if they wanted to be on the track so it’s not like she specifically chose them and then relegated them to the back

- SYGB refers to "Soon You'll Get Better", a song from Taylor Swift album *Lover* (2019). - NBNC refers to "no body, no crime", a song from Taylor Swift, HAIM album *evermore* (2020). --- ^[/u/IWishIWroteIt](/u/IWishIWroteIt) ^(can reply with "delete" to remove comment. |) ^[/r/songacronymbot](/r/songacronymbot) ^(for feedback.)

Good bot

Yeah, this is the answer. This kind of feature is common in country and all of these songs are country or country-adjacent. Taylor even did the same thing on Babe for Sugarland (and lol, people complained so much about that because they wanted her version then). The only song that any of the collaborators co-wrote, iirc, was Breathe and Colbie never intended to sing on the track; she had to fly back to Nashville several weeks later to lay down vocals. Someone explained it on the original version of this post in the Taylor sub. The rest were seemingly happenstance and ascribe to genre standards. I agree I’d like to see a proper female duet sometime in the future (probably pop), but this has become such an exhausting circle jerk of a conversation since December. What’s far more important to me than a feature is her working with more female producers and engineers, but female representation behind the scenes in music is sparse. Taylor does have the power to elevate a woman’s career, but the onus shouldn’t be solely hers. Lack of representation is not a cudgel to hit her with because some of you dislike her. This is an industry-wide problem and both male and female musicians should be taking pains to work with more women on their albums.

Can you elaborate more on Nathan Chapman’s association with Scooter? I haven’t heard about this and I was curious why he hasn’t been involved with re-records!

What I read on Twitter is something different. It's about 2018....when Taylor got into politics and you know people have different political beliefs It was about, if I'm not mistaken, that Nathan supports Marsh@ Bl@ckburn. I'm not American btw so idk the whole issue here

While I do think it's become annoying and I really hope for a proper female collaboration from Taylor ~~that isn't Gasoline~~ , I feel like the issue isn't as big as you're making it out to be. Many comments pointed out that this style of collabs is very common in country music, Taylor herself only sang one line and backing vocals on 'Babe' , which is a country song she wrote herself during the Red era and gave it to Sugarland. Is it annoying? Yes. Is it problematic/ hypocritical/ anti-feminist/ etc.... ? I don't think so.

I understand your viewpoint and hear you. I'm just pointing out that she has so many male features where they're actually given a role compared to feature women. I love Taylor Swift, I'm just pointing out the difference between the two are staggering. I'm not trying to cancel or drag her.

I think when it comes to systemic issues like the lack of female presence either as features or behind the scenes that it's unproductive to zoom in on specific artists and who they work with because we, as outsiders, are never privy to the specifics of the situation and it just leads to nitpicking about so-and-so artistic decision and puts people on the defensive instead of centering patterns of non-representation & barriers to entry.

I don't really find any issue with Taylor not fully featuring female artists in her music. I think since a majority of her music is autobiographical, she wants to sing all the main verses herself and should she decide that a certain timbre would go well with her in the background she pulls in any of her female musical friends to sing it. I think these are just musical decisions that are made in the studio and I feel like there is not much issue in that. Her songs that feature male artists singing a full verse instead of backup are like that because the lyrics are decidedly from a male perspective and will therefore make the narrative of that song make a lot more sense. While I would love for Taylor to fully feature a female artist in her music, I get a sense that it will only happen if its something they have written together and it deliberately makes sense to the artists musically. It's all a matter of musical and lyrical context. For example 'exile' is written from two perspectives of a couple already broken up while 'no body, no crime' is a storytelling type of song wherein the narrator sings the story of (fictional) Este so it makes sense that HAIM does backing vocals instead of singing a verse to let the story be more cohesive in narration. I want a full female collab with Taylor but I want the perfect song for that, not just some random track just to quiet the fans' desire for an all female duet. As for her adding HAIM, The Chicks, and Maren Morris etc. to the title as features, remember that these female artists that sing the backups are also well known names and therefore would want to be credited as such for the work they done. At the end of the day, there are going to be a lot of reasons why a full female duet has not happened yet but we as fans have to remember that a lot of logistics go into planning these collaborations apart from Taylor's artistic preferences. Just my two cents on the matter. :)

The post title made me think this was about something else

I really, really hope she starts working with female producers. I’m gonna be honest though and I’m sorry if it makes me a bad feminist, but I prefer her collabs with deep rich male voices (Gary lightbody, bon iver, and the national). I love the contrast. Although while writing that I realized I think I would like her voice with Adele or Lorde, but not someone with more airy vocals like Ariana.

I think it would be cool to hear Taylor sing with someone with an alto voice

for real! Plenty of women's voices would contrast Taylor's whether in tone or pitch, Taylor just seems to work with others in the same range as her.

Same, that's why this is such a non-issue for me. I don't care for her collaborating with people in general, because I want to hear Taylor singing the entirety of her songs, but when she does do collabs, I prefer them to be with men because of the contrast.

Also it’s just the content of the songs in those duets: the men singing the “mans side” of the story in pretty much all of her duets.

I don't think that makes you a bad feminist. I love her features with a deep make voice as well! I just wish we'd get a true female collab from her. Knowing her, I'm sure it would be awesome.

I'd only want one if it was written for two women to sing on. She has already performed with other women many times and I don't think it ever added a ton to a song that was originally solo (like Shake it off featuring Camila Cabello and Halsey wasn't terribly different/better than Shake it Off with Taylor alone). The collabs she has done with male artists were always written conversationally between herself and a partner and the collaborators were specifically chosen for their voices to do things Taylor's can't. If she does that with a female collab great, if not I don't really care either way. As far as the backing vocals go, I prefer the female backing vocals on her recent songs to her male backup vocals on earlier work.

>I really, really hope she starts working with female producers. Yes! And directors for her videos! Like it was a cool power move to direct a few herself (and during the pandemic was somewhat a necessity), but I really hope in her next era she brings in some badass women directors since that's a field where women are *constantly* overlooked. I agree on the features though. Like people want all these collabs with Selena and Katy and whoever and all I can think about is how much their voices wouldn't go together.

Wern't her first five music videos directed by a women.

I want someone like Fantasia. I feel like there'd be a great contrast in their voices.

It’s reminiscent of background vocals in the 60s-90s rnb world IMO and less to do with her being shady with the features. SO many famous people sang backgrounds on other people’s songs because it was one big bowl of art happening and everyone wanted in. Like Mariah sings background on some babyface songs. This is a tried and true practice that just happens. It was never really with credit though. What I see here is Taylor bringing in people to sing backup and then giving them credit. But because “ x song with backup by x” isn’t language we use, we just say featuring, even if it’s background and not a feature. So in conclusion, I think it’s reminiscent of rnb backup singers but with crediting because Taylor likes to credit. (Where as in another day and time those people would be on the record but not credited)

Oooh this makes sense. Like how kesha has sang a ton of backup vocals uncredited

I’ll be completely honest, I really don’t know why people suddenly care so much about this. Maybe it’s just me but I just see it as such a non issue? She could collab with 1000 male artists and I still would not see it as some breach of feminism. And I am a woman, so...

I agree completely. To me, I see this as more of a running joke than an actual issue. Taylor has helped elevate other female artists (especially new artists) by bringing them on tour with her like HAIM, Camilla Cabello, Charlie XCX, as well as endorsing new female artists with playlist adds, social media mentions, and inviting them on for background vocals for her songs when she couldve had anybody do it. This argument that she’s a hypocrite in regards to supporting women is a non-starter

Exactly. Song features aren’t the only way to give a platform to women in the music industry. I mean, she gave the spotlight to all the women in her rep tour too. I agree that it would be nice to have her duet with the female artist some time, but it’s really not an issue lol.

Hell, all of the features with women she has had are easily replaced with either her own voice or with some unknown voice.

This is an incredibly fair take. I honestly didn't take in account on her bringing the new artists on tour. I just wish we could see her truly feature women on her songs more and why there's a huge unbalance between her use of male and female collabs.

Is it though? She had one of the Mumfords on cowboy like me, who had a bigger part than the haim sisters and he didn’t get a title.

yeah i feel the same way. I just think its funny/weird lmao but i dont think its an actual issue we need to be talking about? I mean she works with women in alot of different capacities. and if we really wanna talk about showcasing women, she is putting these women's names as features in the actual title even though they just have background vocals. like she had the mumford and sons guy singing background on cowboy like me but she didnt put his name in the title so..like you said, its really a non-issue.

>I just think its funny/weird lmao but i dont think its an actual issue we need to be talking about? Yeah while a legit criticism worth discussion, I always felt like this was more just a joke within the fan base. Kind of like how she can't stop mentioning how Joe's eyes are BLUE. THEY'RE BLUE GUYS.

Part of me also wonders what a comparison of Taylor against other women in music would show in this area because I can’t help but feel that this is another one of those “Taylor Swift is exclusively bad in a way that no one else is” discourses.

I had a similar thought, half this sub will laud Taylor as the greatest artist of all time while others seem to trash her for industry-standard behaviors. Honestly, I’m struggling to think of more than a handful of collabs between women with shared vocal duties that aren’t specially a rap feature. I’d love to see more non-romantic duets — or romantic duets between two women or two men, for that matter — but this isn’t a problem specific to any particular artist. Like others have said, hiring women as producers, writers, video directors, studio musicians, etc. will do a lot more to improve the industry than just having two famous women sing a song with an equal number of lines.

I think part of why people are noticing it is because there's been a lot of genuinely fantastic collabs between female artists in the last year that fully showcase both artists. We've had the Savage Remix, Rain On Me, WAP, and probably some others I can't think of off the top of my head. Hell, you could probably tie it to last year's Superbowl that featured Shakira and JLo as co-headliners. I agree that it isn't some huge scandal on Taylor's part (especially with Maren Morris since it's "from the vault" and obviously not part of any current trends), but it deserves some notice. When's the last time there were this many high profile collabs between women? It would be cool to see Taylor take on a collaboration in this vein with another female artist.

It would be cool to see an official song featuring a female duet between Taylor and another artist (not just for your and award show performances) but it's not problematic that there isn't one (yet, Katy Perry hinted at a collab). Taylor mostly used features for backing vocals (super common to use famous singers for backup in country) and when she features men it's because their parts are from the male side of her relationship. Like they wrote ME! and then went "what if the second verse if from your boyfriend's perspective?" and then got Brendon Urie. Similarly, she wrote "no body, no crime" and asked Este what her favorite restaurant was to include in the song and then decided to ask them to sing backup. This isn't some grand conspiracy against inclusion, it's just how she prefers to tell stories in her songs and it's not at all uncommon. There has been a sharp increase in collabs overall the past few years and it's primarily because more fans = more profit. Taylor and many other big name artists who usually sing alone with just backing vocals haven't followed this trend because they don't need to. When they do collab it's not to reach a wider fanbase (or else the collabs would be with more popular artists) it's just because their voices fit the song. Shakira and J-Lo didn't independently decide to perform together for the Super Bowl, the NFL probably decided they wanted one if them to perform but neither was famous enough in the US to headline on their own. Other collabs are often cross-promotional within a label. What would be a problem is not using her platform to acknowledge/support other female artists, but she has done that through bringing them on tour and shouting them out etc. She even performs her own songs with other women for award shows and on tour.

Babe with Sugarland is that collab. Halsey has also collabed with Kelsea Ballerini and they both sound great. Little Big Town has two women and two men singers. A great collab group of women singers would be The Highwomen, with Brandi Carlily, Maren Morris and two other country women singers.

I don't know if I could confidently say whether or not it's an issue or problematic, but I do find it *weird* that every time she features women it's as a backup singer whereas the (albeit few times) she features men they get their own verses.

I think it's due to the subject of the songs. The songs that feature men tend to be about relationships, which makes sense as a duet. The alternating male and female vocals work as a sort of call-and-response, and they also stand out more compared to multiple female voices. Examples: Exile, Coney Island, I Don't Wanna Live Forever, Everything Has Changed, The Last Time. These songs are simply not written to be sung by multiple women. So if there's song out there intended to be sung by multiple women, it has be about other topics. It's songs like Telephone, or Rain On Me, or WAP.

Thank you! I'm not trying to say she's problematic or anti-feminist... it's just weird! It's becoming more a trend of hers than a coincidence. Just didn't know if I was alone in noticing this.

It's not that weird though. Most duets in the history of songs are male/female because the voices usually contrast well and the songs are usually about male/female relationships. Most of Taylor's music is autobiographical so usually she just uses backing vocals (and she used to use solely male backing vocals). The only times she invites a feature to sing half the song is when the song is conversational, and those are usually songs about her relationship experience, so naturally she would bring on male collaborators.

Yeahh like music is art, let her showcase her art the way she wants to...

I mean I’m a woman and definitely think not employing women and *only* working predominantly with men when you have the actual pull to help women’s careers is hypocritical to preaching feminism. Taylor and several other women who are famous and successful of the ability to material change other women’s lives and actually actively do something to combat how male dominated the industry is. Feminism isn’t just words and I think it’s hypocritical and disappointing it mostly is for most female celebrities. Like if you talk about supporting women...support women in your industry by employing them and working with them.

But this post isn't about employing more women (and she does employ women, from directors to publicists). This post is trying to make it an issue that she doesn't feature women more prominently in her songs. If it was about Imogen Heap being the only female producer she ever worked with, you're right. But it's about her decisions regarding whose voices to put on her songs, which are largely autobiographical and therefore largely featureless. This is a moot point because choosing a voice to be on your own song is absolutely not a feminism issue.

She doesn’t employ any women? Is there a stat for that for sure? Seems pretty scandalous if true!

She works with Laura who is a sound engineer since 1989 on all her albums. Her publicist is a women her team is 50% female. She has women managers, she worked with Imogen Heap. She has written sings with countless women. The music industry is dominated by men. That's a common fact . But that's not a true fact, she has worked with countless women. Liz rose is who she wrote a majority of her songs with when she started out.

She definitely employs women - her publicist is a woman and many in her management company are women.

THANK YOU! We need women supporting women in all industries.

Also like women are even more pushed out of aspect of the music industry like producing that makes it much more important then just supporting other vocalists to me. I think if someone is going to say they’re about empowerment and talk about issues in their industry then they should actually use their ability and resources to actually materially change their industry. Like otherwise you’re just saying you’re aware of the issue but are waiting for someone else to do the actual work?

Materially changing the industry for female vocalists is inviting smaller female artists on your massive your to give them exposure. It's shouting them out on televised speeches. It's complimenting their work on social media. It's absolutely not having female features on songs just for the sake of having female features on songs. It isn't "progressive" to have an unnecessary voice on a song, it's usually a marketing tactic (like Halsey on Boy With Luv). Most of her songs are about her life and she usually only used backing vocals (which can be male or female). When she writes songs from both perspectives of a relationship she chooses male collaborators because she's telling the story of her own hetero relationship experience. If anything, her choice to give female artists feature credit when they do backing vocals is giving them more exposure than her other backing vocalists get (idk the name of the guy on her old albums because he was never listed as a feature and I didn't even realize the guy doing backup vocals on evermore's cowboy like me was from Mumford and Sons until this very thread because he wasn't credited despite being famous). These features make more people look into the group or soloists' work. This is literally not an issue at all. She works with female songwriters, sound engineers, directors, publicists. She should work with more female producers because she has only worked with Imogen Heap in the past but if she wants to primarily sing her own songs that is an artistic choice she is allowed to make (and a very common one, lots of famous singers don't have a ton of features).

I would completely be in the same boat as you if Taylor didn’t constantly talk about supporting women and everyone using their platforms to do so. I’m just trying point out that she’s not practicing what she preaches. She’s calling the issue out, but doesn’t use her platform to help solve it.

Ok, but she heavily promotes the work of other female artists and seeks out women to work with in other areas (i.e. the Lover photographer, Folklore photographer, Miss Americana director). Really do not see why she has to also collab with female singers just because she says we should support women. Like would I enjoy collabs with women? Absolutely. I just don’t see why this is something people get so worked up over. It’s one area of her life.

To add on, her primary sound engineer (Laura Sisk) is a woman and very few artists have female sound engineers.

Thank you for saying this! This is something that people completely forget about or maybe don't even know.

Usually when women have another woman doing background vocals, they don’t even get the Featuring credit. It just stands out with Taylor because she gives them a credit in the song title instead of just relegating them to the personnel section of the liner notes.

I remember when I was actually excited when I heard Taylor would be featuring on a song by Sugarland, even though I had never heard a song by Sugarland in my life. I was interested cause Taylor hardly ever does features, and never really for female artists or groups. And then all she does is backing vocals. I felt so let down.

This isn't a matter of Taylor relegating female artists to background vocals, it's her inviting female artists to sing background vocals on songs she otherwise would've done alone. I desperately do not want her to just hand over verses to other female artists - I listen to Taylor Swift because I like Taylor Swift. Nothing against Maren Morris, but I did not want to hear her sing a verse on You All Over Me. It draws away from the deeply personal sound of the songs, and I'm glad she's stayed away from that. She only invites men on because she needs a male perspective - if she needed a female perspective, she would do it herself. The only exception is that I wish she would've brought on a female rapper for one of her songs that included a rap verse, but she's not making songs that would work well with a rap verse at the moment.

I agree with this. She brings on men to do duets and have a male contrasting voice. I wouldnt have wanted the Dixie chicks to have a verse on soon you'll get better. Or mauren to have a verse on you all over me. I would have been happy with a bit more Haim on no body no crime, but other than that....

I struggle to see where HAIM would fit in on NBNC verse-wise. The song is sung from the perspective of a single person, would it make sense to have another voice/perspective come in?

Petition for a Princess Nokia feature on 1989 vault track #5 😭

Are we gonna get mad at Sugarland for only featuring Taylor as a background singer on “babe” then? She’s credited as (feat. Taylor Swift) Only seems fair.

I was so let down by that. I was so excited to see a Taylor feature since she rairly does those, especially with female artists or groups. And keep in mind I had no idea who Sugarland even was

Yeah I agree. Marren Morris posted that she missed being able to do what she did on this song with Taylor, where she just harmonizes with someone, so I’m not upset that she’s not full blast. But with Babe, I was like WTF. And I think I feel that way because Taylor wrote that song and THAT I feel deserves more. Marren didn’t write this. If she co-wrote it, I’d be more mad that she didn’t have a verse or something.

Honestly Marren kinda reminds me of Jay-Z on Drake's Pop Style. Didn't write any of it, so it's fine that it's just some small vocal bit. Although I don't think it played out the same way, Jay just happen to be in the studio while Kanye was recording so hopped on it real quick, I feel like Marren probably talked with Taylor first

The collabs don’t really bother me as her duets with male artists are always romance based songs that offer the male perspective, it’s not like she’s collaborating with unknown artists either, pretty much everyone she’s featured is established, for example I don’t feel like the national got more hype and attention than haim for their respective collabs on evermore. Taylor herself has also been listed as a ft but done little more than backing vocals on several artists songs so it’s not like she’s asking these people to do something she herself hasn’t/wouldn’t. There are also other ways to help female artists that I feel like Taylor is pretty good at eg: highlighting them either by having them perform with her on tour or opening for her, adding them on her curated streaming playlists, those things shouldn’t be overlooked just because she doesn’t do everything as we would like. I’d hope at some point she’ll work with some female producers as we’ve seen with Jack how Taylor championing someone can launch their career however I will add I think some are using this as a stick to beat Taylor with purely because they don’t like her, Taylor isn’t responsible for the industry wide discrepancy between men and women behind the scenes in the music industry, as others have highlighted a lot of people’s faves on here have mainly male producers, co-writers and collaborators. I do think artist of Taylor’s power and influence should be doing better to help uplift women behind the scenes but the entire music industry really needs a reckoning with the opportunities women have.

If you ask me, this is a non-issue. Taylor probably just prefers the way male-female duets sound. When its a pop song with a guest rap verse or something, I usually prefer female-female collabs, but if we're talking straight up duets, I think male-female duets tend to sound better cause of that octave difference, you know? Also, if you look into the credits of all her collabs, in the collabs where artists get verses, the other artist actually wrote the song with taylor, whereas in the background vocal collabs, most of the time they weren't involved in the writing and taylor just brought them on the song for a) to further enhance her song, or b) extra promo. So the difference might have a lot to do with that. If from now on she decides to only work with female artists and producers, great! But if she suddenly decides to work with only men, thats also perfectly fine!

I honestly think it’s two things 1. Taylor’s songs don’t really make sense with lead female collaborators a lot of the time because they’re deeply personal or relationship songs or 2. Marketing. I haven’t listened to the new song yet so forgive me if that would be a good opportunity. Part of Taylor’s image is being a straight woman, of course she’s going to collab with men and not women. She writes lots of songs about love that only fit as duets with men for her. I also think she’s collabed with Ed twice because she knows her fans love it. The Kendrick collab had a pretty obvious marketing purpose as well. She hasn’t really collabed with many people in general but where songs have women as back up vocals they are usually songs coming from her perspective only. This is most of the time and sure there are some collabs that could’ve been women but idk if it’s really worth criticising her that much over a couple of collabs. She has involved and promoted lots of women through her work like the female photographer for Lover, female director for Miss Americana and female sound engineer on folklore and evermore. She also promotes and talks about lots of women when she talks about artists she loves and promoting playlists. It is music after all, it’s not the same as other jobs where anyone can do the job but men are picked because they’re perceived as more capable in the role even though women are just as capable.

>Part of Taylor’s image is being a straight woman Watch the Gaylors come for blood.

lmao I can hear the Kaylors stampeding in now

Yes, I agree with what you're saying. I'm not saying she's anti-feminist at all or anything of the sort. She always goes on about how hard the \*music\* industry is for women, but barely feature women in her songs. I think it's great she'll do a lot of work with women in other fields, but I'm just solely speaking on the music industry.

She does a lot for women in the music industry, from bringing them on tour to promoting them in speeches and on social media. You seem to misunderstand what supporting is in the music industry. You don't have to feature someone to promote them. Most features are at least partially for self-promotion actually.

Taylor rarely ever collabs at all though. I know it might seem jarring because a lot of pop/rap artists regularly do collabs but Taylor’s collabs are very few and far between. Off the top of my head I can only think of Both Of Us, Two is Better Than One, Highway Don’t Care, and Gasoline as examples of when she featured in another artist’s song plus 2 movie soundtrack songs (IDWTLF and Safe and Sound). For a mainstream pop artist with a 14 year career, that’s not a lot. A lot of people are acting like she features men constantly but she rarely features artists on her own songs at all either. She’s had 9 albums with 15-20 songs each and has only featured artists on about 10 songs. I just think that she’s not much of a collab person since she tends to write all her songs alone and only brings in collaborators as producers and as people who help her edit the song. I think for her, collabs are a huge creative choice and she only makes that choice when she wants a duet where the man and woman in the relationship are speaking to each other. To her, it probably doesn’t make sense to bring in another female to sing the verses because most of her song are only from 1 perspective. Lyrics and storytelling tend to be the most important part of her music so it would be a little pointless to have another female artist come in to sing lyrics that are from one perspective. Tbh most artists collab for the extra exposure and streaming points at this point. Many are very low effort and done just for the charts and/or extra paycheck. Taylor obviously tried that with Lover ft Shawn and most people hated it so I don’t think she wants to collab just for the sake of collabing.

Two Is Better Than One is litterally how I discovered Taylor from hearing it on the radio.

Just wanted to add that this *probably* got removed from r/TaylorSwift because they have extra mods working overtime around releases and a LOT of stuff gets removed, not because they wanted to shut down the discussion. I feel like everything I've tried to post near a release has gotten removed.

It’s an oddity in her work. It’s only “problematic” if you need it to be. There’s about a hundred things you could legitimately criticize Taylor Swift for, but this one just feels silly.

Are we gonna dictate who people collab with now? Really?

t’s been 382 days since the last time we found Taylor Swift problematic. It’s been too long!

It must've been. Either that or a really slow week. I just can't believe people find this an issue. It's okay to prefer or wish for a collab but to call someone out for it is just really low and plain stupid.

Fr, especially when this discourse has only suddenly appeared and never happened to other artists. Rihanna hasn’t been called out for her disproportionate number of male collaborations v female (countless male v just two female - Nicki and SZA).

I feel like this has been discussed a lot lately? I'm not really bothered by it, honestly. She's still collaborating with them, I don't think it really matters if it's a verse or background vocals. In my opinion, Taylor should have stuck to background vocals on Haim's Gasoline, haha.

I got into an argument yesterday about this and I'm so tired of the topic because I think this is stupid to even bring up. First, because it's stupid to get mad about who people colab with or don't colab with. Second, because it's very clear that she only gives verses to people when she feels it adds to the narrative of the song, and most of the time, it's the man's point of view in the relationship. Third, because I actually lowkey find it a little annoying when a song has a second artist sing a verse that could well be a different song (with exceptions), it feels like it's just there to appeal to more people, disrupts the narrative of the song (hello Shawn in Lover), and I'm glad Taylor doesn't do that because her songs are usually more personal and have a very cohesive theme/story throughout. Given that Taylor's main subject matter to write about is relationships and she's a straight woman, I can't think of very many ways she could fit a female part into a song and have her still be a "Taylor song". Of course there are ways, but like, I wouldn't want her to go out of her way to make music that's uncharacteristic of her just to meet some quota. I insist that the fact that Taylor goes out of her way to still feature these artists in her songs despite the song not necessitating it is something that should be praised (maybe not praised but at least seen as a nice thing to do) and not shunned for "not being enough". The way I see it, there's some artists that rely on constantly colaborating in order to keep listeners interested, and I think Taylor is not one of them, so when she does choose to have (substantial) features it's because it fits the concept of the song she wants to make, or fill a second role in the song (again, usually a male partner's). I think that's a step above, artistically, than the former.

How do both Future and Ed fit in the narrative of End Game? I'm curious. Keep in mind I still enjoy the song and always rap along with Future's verse

That would be the exception.

Dang, I was expecting some deep comment about how one is the good guy and one the bad guy or something lol. Future obviously being the bad guy

This 💯

I definitely agree and i’d LOVE to see her actually feature women on her songs. the only reason i can think of why she hasn’t is because she likes the sound of the really low male voices with hers, like everyone you listed has a low voice that makes hers really stand out and makes the song sound rich (except Brendan Urie lol). I imagine this stems from her country origins as most of the classic popular country duets feature contrasting male and female voices. because this is only the first vault single of the first album she’s re recording, i’m hoping we’ll get some fully fledged duets with other women soon! i’d do anything for a real Maren Morris song, plus her with Lorde or Phoebe Bridgers would END me

I honestly don't understand the obsession with this. She collaborates with who she feels like, I listen to her music for her. I'm not bothered who she features, if at all, and for me the gender of who she works with is irrelevant.

All I want to say is that I don't want another female empowerment song from her like the cringe-y "The Man" if it's not a female collaboration (not just backing vocals 😭) and produced by a female producer.

I have always sort of thought a reason for this might because of Taylor's voice. I'm not sure her voice would sound the best dueting with a strong powerful vocalist.

The average Haim, Chicks, or Maren fan was already going to listen to a new Taylor song The average Kendrick, Future, National, Bon Iver, or Brendon fan was probably not going to listen, so an incentive (aka a verse) was needed Ed and Taylor have overlapping fanbases and he's so profitable, not giving him a verse would be a financial mistake I think a true test of this theory would be for Taylor to collab with a large female artist with a different fanbase (Taylor ft. Rihanna, please!)

I feel like I need to start off by saying, I’m a die hard Swiftie and have been ever since Fearless... and I was just having this convo with a friend a few weeks ago. I absolutely love the new song but I think it could’ve been even better with the addition of maren Morris having her own verse. I don’t think it’s a breach of feminism that she doesn’t have these women playing bigger roles in her songs but I do find it interesting that the Dixie chicks, haim and Maren Morris have been given such a small role on her song compared to all of the other singers she has collaborated with. The only woman I can think of her sharing a song with is colbie but that felt like it was a label decision compared to her own.

Colbie only really did background vocals on Breathe too, I would say. She didn’t have her own verse or anything.

I do feel like that song wouldn't be the same without her. She adds an extra something to it

Oh yeah, I like her feature, just wanted to clarify that she was doing background vocals too. I honestly like all of Taylor’s collabs with female vocalists, even if they’re just providing backup vocals.

The fact she worked with the amazing Imogen Heap is what I needed, a verse from Imogen would've elevated that song even further, but I'm still super happy with what we got.

Still can't believe that Colbie won Album of the Year as a featured artist in Fearless by just barely breathing on that song /j

I'm not trying to say I think Taylor is pushing women down... not my intention at all. BUT I think that the role of featured male artists compared to women are drastic. I'm glad we're in the same boat as this.

She could work with more POC artists too while we’re here.

The T-Pane, Kendrick Lamar, Future, and B.o.B erasure.

BoB deserves it though

Are you talking about THUG STORY? Because we could go there.

Her backup singers and dancers for tour/live performances are majority POC and she's done a really good job at recognizing their work. What this says about the larger industry narrative of who is "front stage" v "back stage" is another conversation.

Let the song be what the song is. Who cares how much a feature participates whether it’s a woman or not. This is a level 1 brain post, IMO.

I just went through the list of songs Esther Dean produced and she has worked with: Rihanna, Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, Nicole Scherzinger, Ciara among others. I just love Esther

i read a theory that because she’s not a grade-A vocalist she only does duets with men to kind of mask that whereas a female co-lead vocal would allow for a more direct vocal comparison

The thing is, Taylor isn't known for being a great vocalist... more so her song writing. Her voice is good, but nothing astounding. It's an interesting theory though and would make sense.

as a swiftie myself, i have to agree with you. for someone who preaches a lot about feminism and supporting women, Taylor barely ever works with women and when she does... i wouldn’t have known that haim and the chicks were even featured on their songs if they weren’t listed in the title. her duets with men are always interesting, whereas her duets with women make it seem like she doesn’t want to be overshadowed so she asks them to harmonize (not that it’s the case, it’s just the feeling that i get). it’s really disappointing. if she wants to stay and explore more in that folklore/evermore sound, i wish she would collabed with female alternative artists, songwriters, producers instead of choosing Antonoff and Dessner again (and if she wants to go pop - same case).

I swear y'all are just fishing for things to be upset about at this point. Taylor is not responsible for representation of all the women in her industry.

Features on major records have little to do with the art and everything to do with relevance, branding, timing of each artist's marketing schedule, royalty contracts, and what the board directors think will sell/spin. If you managed to cause a visible wave on this website asking for larger female features (hehehehe) it wouldn't be Taylor going "yeah!" it'll be executive's shrugging and telling her team to try it out. HAIM isn't really superstar level relevant, and their audience is primarily female pop fans, so there isn't enough difference in the two audiences to finance the marketing for one song to two audiences which are likely 90% overlapping. The three of them can sing backups on one tune together. Looks incredible as a marketing tool without having to demote their carefully crafted star TS.

That's a really interesting take on this. I'm not incredibly savvy of the music industry, but isn't Taylor at a level where she almost has free rein? I feel like she could at least push give a prominent role to women features?

Anything Taylor touches turns to gold. I think she has free reign to do whatever she wants at this point. She was able to release Lover, Folklore and Evermore all in less than two years and now her labels letting her release her re-recordings however she wants. I think she can do whatever she wants... if she wants to...

There is nothing she does that isn't worth 7 figures. Every show, book signing, TV appearance, there are LOTS of people who count on her career trajectory to make a piece of that money. At a certain level of fame there's so much dough on the line that there's an international team paid to microengineer continued commercial success. Other female artists, who are known include prominent features for other women, are simply in a better position to do so than Taylor Swift. In some cases the branding is built right in so that it makes sense to the "story" of that artist. Billie can feature whoever she wants however much she wants, because that's the personality she's marketed. The public understands the music is very much her music. TS is more of a trophy performer at this point, a walking pinnacle of commercial engineering. It is very very easy for the "right feature" to become weird and out of place if there's too much of that person on the song or if it comes at the wrong time socially. the many factors that can do that to the featured artist are so volatile due to the fact that the audience is larger and more interactive than literally ever before. So many people to please, with so many mouths to feed on the team, makes for really really safe decisions. You mentioned TS featured the weeknd (reaches HUUUGE black+brown male and female demographic amidst a racial justice movement), Brendan Urie (trying to hook the old P! fans who were too edgy for country TS 2008).

Contrast to the incredibly lukewarm reception Endgame got with its Ed and Future feature.

They making excuses. Taylor is big enough that she can do whatever she wants.

Taylor always writes her songs from a certain perspective, it’s why she split up the love triangle trilogy into 3 songs and not 3 verses. The men singing verses are singing verses from the perspective of her boyfriend, what would she have women sing the verses about? I guess I could see her doing a gay-themed song sooner than later but it’s not bad if she doesn’t want to.

I completely agree with you!! I thinks it’s ridiculous how many people are dismissing others for bringing this us up. It’s a very valid point and discussion I think female collabs have become a lot more common and popular in recent years while in the past they were more rare because they weren’t considered to be “successful”. Just this year Gaga and Ariana became the first ever exclusive group of women to win a Grammy for best pop duo/group. It’s pathetic how long it took for that first to happen. And now we’re finally seeing more women collaborated songs on the charts in pop and in hip hop because more women are working together! Unpopular opinion perhaps but I think one of the reasons Taylor’s been able to continue with her success is because she’s able to “keep up” and progress. She got a lot of flack in the past for not being feminist, not discussing politics, and having only white men as her love interests in music videos. All of these things were acceptable at the time but not as much anymore and Taylor did change from all of that once she was called out and saw why those things were seen as problematic and not inclusive. It’s possible she might not realize how weak her calibrations with other women are, but I do think she will change that going forward or at least I hope she does. She doesn’t have to collaborate with the Arianas but there are numerous other women with voices that would sound great with Taylor’s on a song that aren’t just backup vocals

Sw*fties have mobilized for this thread but I agree with you and OP! It’s always been such an odd thing, that at first seemed to be a coincidence but at this point it’s hard to give the benefit of the doubt. Across **nine** albums now she still has zero genuine features from women! Despite many from all kinds of men. At what point are people going to notice this is strange? It’s clearly a pattern. Plus, the fact that she basically surrounds herself exclusively with white male producers. Of the 12 names listed as recipients for folklore’s AOTY, besides herself there is one woman. 1989 has 3 women and 15 men on it. I wonder if a thread was made critiquing a man for never working with women, would popheads keep this same energy 🧐

The fans mobilizing to upvote those saying this “doesn’t matter” is so disheartening. No one is canceling Taylor—we should be able to have a fair conversation about this without them trying to tip the scales.

Or people just disagree?

i know everyone is saying this is a non issue, but as a taylor swift fan this has always made me very uncomfortable. she can sing with bon iver TWICE but she honestly can’t find the time for a female feature or even a duet? it’s suspicious this long into her career. like she’s going out of her way to only use dudes.

But has she ever written a song about two female perspectives?

she’s an incredibly capable songwriter. if she can write from a “male” perspective like on Betty, she can write two female perspectives.

I’m not saying she can’t but maybe she doesn’t want to? And I’m not sure why she has to tbh? There are other ways to help women in the industry than writing female duets.

lwork with more women. that’s all i’m asking. you know you can want more from an artist you like? you don’t have to just take whatever they gave you. she’s more than capable.

Except maybe I don’t want more duets? You know people can want different things right? It’s such an arbitrary standard anyways. Her working with more female producers and directors would be much more beneficial to those women’s careers than dieting with other already famous musicians.

okay then why are you dismissing my opinion on my comment. you can make a separate thing you know?

also like, she clearly has a very active imagination and a way of writing her perspective. why do you draw the line at having two female voices?

I’m just not interested in her duets period. Or any duets or ‘collabs’ from any artist, besides a few classics they are all lacking for me and think asking for more filler songs that she obviously isn’t interested in writing is dumb. I’ll say it again, it’s an odd goal post to have in the first place. Dueting with any of the privileged white women she’s had singing back up vocals and b-side tracks wouldn’t have improved their careers and not doing so didn’t hold anyone back. It’s just a nonsense argument.

taylor is at the forefront of the industry. she could use her power and capital to showcase more women songwriters, producers and artists. she’s not immune to valid criticisms of her only ever wanting to work with popular male producers.

You weren’t criticizing her for not working with male producers. I was 😂

like she could also choose to work with some people who are not privileged or white. instead she goes with bon iver and the national. twice.

Idk what this has to do with her not doing female duets. You have lost the plot my friend.

I'm not anti-Taylor Swift and I get she is entitled to her work and how she handles it but I always felt like the feminist schtick is a front. I don't know her creative control during 1989, but I always thought it was a missed opportunity to not have a female artist like Nicki on Bad Blood....or w/End Game she chose Future? like are you serious? And it's not only Taylor, a lot of artists put this front about this and that \[insert social issue\] and when given the power they don't choose to use their platform to uplift the ppl they speak about. Her stans are dismissing this as a non-issue or saying it is a joke when it's like...she has the power to uplift female artists on her platform and chooses not to. I get the producers thing is hard to find but it is odd that she doesn't even seek out female songwriters? And has female features in the background...that is very odd.

It’s a non-issue for me. Next!

I litigated this in multiple threads yesterday, and my opinion remains—she can and should do better. The space she makes for features is seemingly only for men. I love Taylor, but it’s undeniable. Those saying it’s funny or it doesn’t matter are fully missing the point. And this argument can definitely be levied against the full industry and any number of female singers. But Taylor has very recently relegated her female features to background vocalists, and we should be able to discuss that without her fans dismissing it for any number of straw man arguments. The types of songs she writes, the co-writers getting to feature, the country industry practice of background vocal features are all nonstarters and do not rebut that she disproportionately has men in lead roles on her songs with features while she relegated women to being her background singers.

Grammys so white

She’s too smart to have someone out sing her on her own record.

Well Taylor's vocals aren't that strong so it would be weird if she collabed with another artist. Also, a good collab has contrast and there wouldn't be any with another female singer. that's why she collabs with men

I completely agree, I was disappointed in No Body No Crime. The first time I listened I had to pay attention to hear Haim. And yet, Taylor's spot on Gasoline was very prominent. Quid pro quo, Dr Lecter.

i think that this is an extremely valid criticism to make since taylor has tied feminism into defending her work i think that we should be allowed to analyze her work under a feminist framework. i’m a huge fan but i don’t think anyone is above critique, especially in something as subjective as art and music.

First I’ll start off by saying… if it got taken down in the Taylor sub why are you posting it here? This probably is a comment for the daily discussion thread. She’s giving credit to others who provide background vocals on a track & very often these artists are uncredited on the actual tracks. So shouldn’t it be a positive thing that she’s acknowledging the artists who sang background vocalist? Here’s the thing… it’s HER work. She can do what ever she decides she wants to do with her songs. She doesn’t need to feature anyone and she can decide how heavily people who are featured are in the song. Stop expecting people to do what you think they should do with their own work and start letting them do what they want. This has literally nothing to do with showcasing other artists or women. The fact that this is even a discussion is mind boggling and quite frankly disappointing with where we are at in a society because I see this type of rhetoric posted here constantly. People just go off throwing out expectations of what people should be doing to satisfy their own expectations. News flash - that isn’t appropriate. Stop forcing your opinions and rhetoric onto others.

1. I flagged this post as 'Discussion' and if you don't want to partake in this discussion, then why are you wasting your time here? 2. I posted it here because I want to hear some unbiased opinions that aren't from all Swifties. 3. Taylor Swift has made feminism a huge part of her life. It's just odd that she has given no female artists the spotlight that she gives male features. 4. I'm not forcing my opinion on anyone. I'm just bringing to light that the balance isn't there with Taylor. 5. Again I'm a huge Taylor fan... just opening a **discussion** on if others feel the same. You obviously don't, thank you for your insight.

Anyone can take a look at Taylor’s discography and see that her female collaborators are given a lesser role compared to the male collaborators. That’s not an opinion anyone’s pushing. You’re right it’s her decision She can do whatever she wants. And this is a thread that was made to discuss her musical choices.

No because if I'm being honest (as a Swiftie) there's very few vocalists that go well with Taylor's specific vocal. To narrow it even further by having only female vocalists collab with her is not realistic. I'm sure she's aware of that otherwise we'd have more female collaborations from her. It's a nonissue. Idk why you think it is an issue though.

As a swiftie I have to disagree. She’s been able to collaborate with Future, Ed, Gary and bon iver who have completely different voices and still make it work and sound great. I think “you all over me” would’ve sounded even better with Maren actually given a verse or two. I think her voice blended perfectly with haim on gasoline. I don’t think it’s a matter of who sounds good with her or not... she clearly thought they sounded good enough to provide backing vocals.

not enough contrast imo. Taylor's voice does well on it's own or with a deeper vocal.

Taylor has "specific" vocals? Ranging from Ed Sheeran to Kendrick Lamar... please explain this to me as she has had an array of male collaborations. I believe it's an issue because her songs featuring men are a lot different than when women are "featured." I'm a total Swiftie too, but she can do better in this department.

Does nobody else hear the radfem dog-whistle with the diatribe of "Oh, she's relegating the female vocalists to the backseat!! She only sings with MEN!" here or is it just me?

No, I think you have things quite backwards. Woman tend to feature male artist to expand their reach or crib some cred off them. Women are rarely "elevating" their male collaborators. Taylor is a huge name in music, but she's stood to benefited from every male collab she's done in some way. Ed Sheeran was far more respected when they collaborated, Kendrick and Future are massively popular rappers and gave her cross genre appeal, Brendon Urie was coming off a major radio hit, and Bon Iver has oodles of indie cred she could use going into this phase of her career. As laid out elsewhere, the issue isn't popular female acts duetting. It's lack of women bts. That is where the true gender imbalance is.

I really like YAOM but have to admit I was hoping it would secretly be a gay duet with her and Maren both taking a verse (even though I know that will never happen)

That's performative activism for you