Miss Americana is a Netflix documentary about Taylor Swift, showing the ups and downs of her time in the public eye. She discusses many important things in her documentary like her eating disorder, being pressured to not speak out about controversial things, and victim blaming. “Miss Americana” shows the immense amount of pressure society puts on women, especially young women.
In the beginning of “Miss Americana” Taylor Swift opens up about her eating disorder she had when she was younger. When discussing her body image issues she said, “Cause if you are thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants. But if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, then your stomach isn’t flat enough.” This shows the intense amount of pressure society puts on women to have a perfect body type that doesn’t exist. These unattainable beauty standards can lead many women and young girls to have eating disorders that can be severely detrimental to their health.
In the middle of the documentary, Taylor discusses the pressure her publisher and others put on her when she was younger to stay out of politics. They would say things like, “A nice girl doesn’t force their opinions on people,” “A nice girl doesn’t make people feel uncomfortable with her views.” These are such toxic things to say to someone, because it is basically saying if you express how you feel, then you no longer are a nice girl. A lot of women, especially when they are younger, feel the need to be liked by everyone, so statements like these can hold a lot of power over someone.
Towards the end of the documentary Taylor discussed being groped by a radio DJ and her experience in court. He sued her after she reported his sexual misconduct, which resulted in him being fired. She discussed the victim-blaming she faced in court. She said, “The first thing the say to you in court, is ‘Why didn’t you scream?’” This just shows how women's standards are so much higher than men. He should have been the one being interrogated with questions, instead they were asking her questions, implying that it was her fault she allowed this to happen to her. Overall, women are held to a much higher standard than men are most of the time. Bringing awareness to this discrimination is the first step in changing how society views women.
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