Psychic battle surrounding the political moves of American ingenues is not a new phenomenon. For comparison, we can look to other young white women who navigated similar pressures to conform to conservative gender norms.
Marilyn Monroe provides an intriguing starting point in the postwar era. Her infamous 1962 performance of “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” for Kennedy at his Madison Square Garden birthday celebration was not an endorsement, but it was an early example of a famous white woman interacting with a politician on the national stage. Appearing in a skintight sparkling gown, Monroe embodied the hypersexualized beauty expected of starlets of the era. Her performance fueled speculation about her rumored affair with the president, adding more glamor and intrigue to JFK’s image but ultimately reinforcing the sexist status quo. “I can now retire from politics after having had Happy Birthday sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way,” said Kennedy when he took the mic at the end of the show. Of course, he was being ironic; he was emphasizing the opposite, how entirely unwholesome Monroe seemed. And that was the reductive trap white female entertainers found themselves in: the Madonna or the whore. Choose one, never both.
That same year, however, a much different kind of woman was on the rise: Joan Baez. As the unrivaled star of the folk music revival, she appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in late November 1962 at the age of 21. Far from the iconoclast she became, Baez had kept her progressive politics rather quiet during her ascent to the mainstream. She was known for her sparkling soprano renditions of the Child Ballads, a body of traditional English and Scottish songs carried over the Atlantic well before her time. She often wore loose white dresses and averted her gaze as she sang, gaining a reputation as folk’s Madonna. However, in the Time article, she cleared up any confusion about the kind of young woman she was. First of all, she was not white: Her father was Mexican. She detailed her experience of racism growing up in the 1940s and ‘50s. Furthermore, she spoke openly about her recent shows in the American South, where she was establishing a new precedent for mainstream entertainers with written clauses in each of her contracts insisting on integrated seating.
At that moment, Baez risked trading perceptions of her purity for something much closer to perceptions of Marilyn Monroe. But, much like Jackie Kennedy and other educated, self-possessed women who were gaining star power by the early 1960s, Baez managed to fuse the two options and model a kind of political womanhood that maintained enough normative sex appeal to keep the mainstream engaged — for a time, at least. Baez would become one of the leading female pop musician-activists of the 1960s, engaging consistently with the civil rights and anti-war movements. Many followed her lead: Mary Travers, Carole King, Judy Collins, Jane Fonda and more.
Swift’s political activities pale in comparison to these women, but in many ways, it isn’t a fair comparison. Multiple decades and massive change in the music industry separate her from a figure like Baez. “In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the suits would send out [artists and repertoire] men to scout out what the kids wanted to hear (buy). But in the ‘80s, they decided not to waste their time on that and just tell kids what to buy,” Kristen Hersh told New Lines via email. The frontwoman of the independent bands Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave, Hersh also published “The Future of Songwriting” this year. “They bought radio play, bought magazine covers, bought shelf space in record stores, etc. They bought attention,” she said.