Something brilliant happened this month. A Taylor Swift fan tweeted a screenshot from the singer’s “Look What You Made Me Do” video, along with the caption “Name a bitch badder than Taylor Swift”. What happened next was amazing.
Initially the responses included innocuous jokes like “the cleaning lady from Family Guy”, but then things took a turn for the better. People in the Twitterverse started listing all of the women throughout history whom they considered to be “badder” than Taylor Swift, and they include war heroes, scientists, activists and more.
Not to speak ill of Taylor Swift, but these are the women that changed (and in some cases helped save) the world.
https://twitter.com/fakeangeleno/status/937911352969936896
HEDY LAMAR! Movie Star. First on-screen portrayal of a woman actually enjoying sex, also invented a radio guidance system for torpedoes that killed Nazis and arguably helped invent Bluetooth. Super Genius. Gorgeous. #badderthantaylor pic.twitter.com/yXMDf40dKp
— 🇺🇸𝐂𝐩𝐭𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐤𝐚𝐃𝐮𝐧𝐤🇯🇵 (@cptfunkadunk) December 5, 2017
Carrie Fisher fought through the stigmas Hollywood put against her while battling bi-polar disorder and she doctored about every movie you loved growing up. She managed to educate people about mental health issues and be a support system for her fans. https://t.co/XKA665WjND
— rachel leishman (@RachelLeishman) December 4, 2017
And a healthy amount of users listing their own mothers and grandmothers…
How about my Mum who as a teenager had just had abdominal surgery and that night crawled through smoke and passing the hospital infirmary carried a baby out of the burning hospital that had just been hit by a German V1
— Michael Geoghegan (@BCLobbyist) December 5, 2017
My grandma travelled from Poland to Belgium to Canada on a ship at the age of 7, cared for her 2-year-old brother BY HERSELF, arrived here not speaking a word of English. Thirty years later, she was a nurse in London in WW2. She raised my dad mostly on her own.
— Blue-eyed Rat (@OrangeRat81) December 4, 2017
My mom Carol Bass, who raised 3 kids, 4 grandkids, held down 3 jobs, was a softball & bowling champ, fought cancer and dealt with an alcoholic, abusive ex-husband in a time when nobody cared about "domestic situations" while giving tirelessly of herself.
Taylor Swift? Lol
— Kennie Bass (@KennieBassWCHS) December 6, 2017
Every now and then Twitter does something right. If you want to see more responses, check out the hashtag #badderthantaylor.
While I dislike the inherent pitting of women against one another in #badderthantaylor; I do ADORE the stream of stories about strong, badass women across cultures and time. I shared some of them, but there are so, so many more worth checking out in the comments.
— Raven Just Dancing (@neversremedy) December 5, 2017