The 2010 song “Better Than Revenge” by Taylor Swift tells the story of a narrator who is very angry at another woman for “stealing” her man. The song expresses her anger towards and her disdain for the other woman by criticizing her. 

My first problem with this song is that it pits women against each other and blames the other women for the narrator’s relationship issues. At the end of the day, the narrator’s boyfriend chose to be with someone else, and the narrator should be blaming him, not the other women. Blaming the other woman instead of the narrator’s boyfriend comes across as very patriarchal and outdated. 

However, my main problem with this song is the lyric “she’s better known for the things she does on the mattress.” This lyric is slut-shaming and misogynistic. It suggests that the other woman is somehow a bad person or not “moral” because she has had sex with multiple people. This is incredibly misogynistic; no one should be shamed for the consensual sex that they have, and they certainly should not be considered morally corrupt or not a good person because they have had sex before. 

While “Better Than Revenge” is an expression of the anger that the narrator feels when someone she likes ends up with another girl, it comes across as slut-shaming and blaming other women for problems that are not their own. Even though the song was written 12 years ago, it is not an excuse for the outdated messages surrounding women, sexuality, and purity. Overall, while it is catchy, it is not a very supportive or feminist song. In fact, it is a song that contains harmful messages for young people (Taylor Swift’s main audience) to hear. In the years after she released this song, I think that Taylor Swift has made more music that is supportive of other women, which I appreciate.