Depending on who you are speaking to, mentioning “Taylor Swift” or “Ariana Grande” could go in contrary directions. Public opinion toward these women, amongst other female celebrities, is polarizing at the least. Now, if I mentioned Harry Styles or Bad Bunny, you wouldn’t expect to have such polarized responses. Although someone might be a superfan of them, no one ever expresses the same amount of hostility towards these men as they so often do with women like Swift and Grande. This leads me to my question: how comfortable is our society with female power?
Using Swift and Grande, the two main punching bags of American popular culture, I want to examine how public curiosity has turned into mass scrutiny and criticism of everything they do. More specifically, I am interested in investigating the reason why female pop stars’ growing popularity makes the artist herself a product of public consumption, and what that reveals about the weight of gender and power in American culture.
The hostility directed toward these women in positions of power is not simply a resulting tradeoff of stardom. A study published by the Southwestern Social Science Association examines how gender and political attitudes shape the public’s perception of Taylor Swift. Using national survey data, researchers found that hostile sexism — aside from political partisanship –– was the largest determinant of attitudes toward Swift. This was especially high among Republican men. The study defines hostile sexism as “the degree to which respondents feel
resentment toward women’s gains and growing power.” This bias also shows up in how the press interacts with female celebrities. A 2025 study from Brigham Young University analyzed 44 Oscars red-carpet interviews and found that female celebrities were disproportionately questioned about their fashion, physical appearance, and romantic relationships, while male celebrities received more questions about their work. These findings reveal a persistent pattern of gender bias surrounding female celebrities. The way female stars are presented to the public, with significantly more emphasis on their appearances and personal lives than their male counterparts, is perhaps one of the greatest facilitators of this gender bias.
Nowhere is this gendered scrutiny more apparent than in the media’s fascination with the romantic lives of these female celebrities. In a recent interview with Pete Davidson published by Variety Magazine, Davidson –– an ex-partner of Ariana’s –– uttered maybe 2 sentences regarding his past relationship with the singer: “It’s something that comes up once in a while. But I think Ariana’s fuckin’ cool and immensely talented and an awesome girl.” Even a brief mention of her name resulted in it being included in the article’s headline, arguably overshadowing the main subject and redirecting media attention toward her.
The public’s fixation on Grande is nothing new; in fact, her physical appearance has become a focal point of this scrutiny and debate, once again overshadowing her accomplishments as a musician or actress. In an August 2026 Newsweek article titled ‘Ariana Grande Steps Back — What She Has Said About Body Scrutiny,’ the publication discusses the criticism she has faced regarding her body and her decision to step away from the spotlight following her immensely successful “Eternal Sunshine” tour. Grande’s representative spoke of the media’s persistent scrutiny of her body as ‘endless.’ Despite her successes across different industries, Grande has repeatedly found herself at the center of public debacles, whether she has invited such commentary or not. In a 2017 Time magazine article following the release of Taylor Swift’s 6th studio album, “Reputation,” she mentions the media’s tendency to ‘scour’ her lyrics for clues about which men they can attribute the song to, comparing the relentless scrutiny to a paternity test. This often leads the media to disregard her work and shift the attention toward her personal life or relationships.
Rather than letting her music stand alone as an artistic creation, audiences and media outlets quickly interpret her music as literal or autobiographical accounts of her life. These media biases reveal how female artists’ personal lives become inseparable from, or even more important than, their work as artists. Their accomplishments therefore come at the expense of their personal lives, which become subject to public consumption, when they should not have to be filtered down to scrutiny of their personal lives for public consumption.
However, this problem stems far beyond celebrity gossip and popular culture. The treatment of powerful women such as Swift and Grande reflects the public’s broader discomfort with women in positions of power or success. Both of these women recognize that fame grants them ample control over their public image, career, and influence, yet the discussions surrounding these women consistently circle back to gendered topics such as romantic relationships, appearances, and whether they are behaving in ways the public deems ‘acceptable.’
This is what makes the hostile sexism towards these women politically significant. The question is not whether Taylor Swift or Ariana Grande should be immune to criticism; it’s that this criticism almost always becomes about their gender. Society might be comfortable with these women gaining power, but it assumes that power entitles them to be known in every aspect of their lives –– their power comes at the expense of their autonomy.
The Zeitgeist aims to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board.
