Taylor Swift Dreams Of The Trad Life In Her Newest Album "Life Of A Showgirl"

Taylor Swift has always been a mirror. Every time she puts out an album, it ends up reflecting some part of what women are talking about, fighting about, or secretly dreaming about. The Life of a Showgirl is no different, except this time the mirror looks less like a disco ball and more like a cul-de-sac driveway. The album is old Hollywood and sparkly (Sabrina-inspired, perhaps) on the outside, but tucked inside are lyrics about marriage, kids, settling down, and, well, wood… but we won’t talk about that in this piece. 

However, let me preface this by saying that Taylor singing about marriage and family is not a new phenomenon. No one should be surprised. From the very beginning, the 14-time Grammy winner built her career on songs that were unapologetically feminine at a time when pop rewarded toughness, irony, or sexual bravado. On her self-titled debut and Fearless, she wore sundresses instead of leather, writing about fairytales and yearning. She gave us a modern princess in her song “Love Story,” as well as the innocence and freedom of spinning barefoot in Fearless. 

Later in Starlight, she painted a fantasy of running off, getting married, and having ten children. “We’ll have ten kids and teach them how to dream,” she sang. While the song is written from the perspective of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy, it’s hard to miss how their trad-coded love story inspired her. In an old interview, the singer explained, “I get a lot of style inspiration from the 1960s, so I’ll go and look at black-and-white pictures, and look at photos from the ’50s and ’60s, and I came across this picture of these two kids dancing at a dance.”

By the time we reached Reputation and Midnights, she was writing songs that leaned into vengeance, bitterness, and disappointment, which is the tone that dominates so much of today’s pop landscape. “Midnights” in particular carried the sting of long-term love without the payoff; the six-year relationship that never turned into a proposal. Her catalog mirrored the culture: Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, and even Taylor herself turned heartbreak and fury into hooks. Softness hadn’t been selling over the past five years; anger was.

The Life of a Showgirl is a huge (and much-needed) pivot. After the most successful tour of her generation, she’s writing about the very things that once made her famous: love, marriage, family, permanence. She has returned to the femininity that she embraced at the beginning of her career. Best of all, Taylor’s having fun. She’s not hiding from the cat-lady jokes or the endless discourse about whether she’s “too ambitious for love.” She’s mocking it. On her new song “Wi$h Li$t,” she sings, “They want those three dogs that they call their kids… I just want you / Have a couple kids, got the whole block looking like you.”

She has returned to the femininity that she embraced at the beginning of her career.

It’s jarring to liberals in the best way. How often do we hear a woman at the top of her career, with the money and freedom to live however she wants, sing about wanting something so ordinary, and so taboo in the feminist sphere?  

In “Eldest Daughter,” Taylor also flat-out admits, “When I said I don’t believe in marriage, that was a lie.” After so many years of Taylor brushing off the idea, it was surprising to hear her put it into a song. That’s really the thread running through The Life of a Showgirl: Taylor letting the mask slip. In the same song, she admits she’s been “dying just from trying to seem cool.” Many women spend their twenties proving their independence, demonstrating that they’re not too soft, not too needy, and not desperate for love.  

Even “Honey” tells this story in miniature. For years, pet names were insults to her; they were perceived as condescending, sexist, or passive-aggressive. But now she sings, “But you touched my face / Redefined all of those blues / When you say ‘Honey.’” This kind of receptiveness only happens when you finally find someone who makes you feel safe; someone masculine enough that you can relax into your feminine with. Feminists might call that a relinquishment of control, but I’d call it something else: being comfortable enough with someone that you no longer operate from self-protection, but from love and trust.

Reddit’s Meltdown

Of course, upon the album's release, the internet immediately lost it. How dare Taylor, nearly 36, dream about settling down? On Reddit, a post went viral for pointing out how conservative, or at least trad-coded, her lyrics sound. The user wrote that “Trad wife values are on her wishlist for her life with Travis,” including a “suburban house, tons of children who look like their father (ie sons?), which is rather negatively contrasted with people who have dogs instead of children. The idea that marriage was once ‘1950s shit’ is now ‘a lie.’ Was pride in being a ‘childless cat lady’ one too?”

Taylor has been branded a feminist for years; standing up for her friends, defending women in court, re-recording her masters, singing empowerment anthems. But now that she’s fantasizing about a home and kids, suddenly she’s a traitor to the cause. It’s as if the only acceptable feminism is the kind where you never admit you might want what your mom or grandmother wanted. What do we actually mean when we call someone a feminist, then? If feminism is supposed to be about women having choices, then how is choosing marriage and children not feminist? Why is the image of a “trad wife” automatically disempowering? Attacking Taylor for voicing those desires is actually regressive, reducing female empowerment back down to a single approved lifestyle. Some women indeed want marriage, and some don’t. You’d think the most feminist response would be to let women decide for themselves, and to be supportive about their choices in love, so long as those relationships are healthy.

It’s as if the only acceptable feminism is the kind where you never admit you might want what your mom or grandmother wanted.

If you ask me, the outrage is overblown. Taylor isn’t giving up her career. She’s not saying she wants to become a suburban mom in Kansas and quit writing songs. She’s doing what she has always done: writing about the fantasies she has in her head. I find it strange that feminists are fine with fantasies about revenge, power, or burning down an ex in a song, but the moment it’s about being happy with your soon-to-be-husband and kids, it suddenly feels threatening. However, if she does ever choose to step back from touring to raise her kids, that would be her choice, and a powerful one at that.

The Bigger Picture

Here’s the thing: Taylor Swift is still a symbol of female empowerment in my eyes. She has done more for women in music and beyond than almost anyone else in her generation. But if feminism frames personal choice as its own kind of strength, then choosing husbands and children has to be part of that.

Perhaps that’s the real radical idea buried in The Life of a Showgirl. Taylor is not saying every woman should want a family. She’s just saying she wants one. And in a culture where pride in being “childless” is celebrated but admitting you want kids makes you sound regressive, maybe her honesty is actually the most courageous, empowering thing she could do right now. She’s also reflecting the cultural shift we’re already seeing: Charli XCX (who's also hinted about wanting a baby), Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato just got married. If the Taylor Swift is singing about it, maybe we’re about to see a domino effect of women falling in love and having kids again. There’s no hidden agenda in that. Because love, commitment, and family aren’t dangerous ideas, they’re simply natural.

While I don’t expect Taylor to be a stay-at-home mom next year, maybe her songs will give more women permission to believe that love and family are worth celebrating, too.