This thread got real sad.
Reacting to a comment in isolation isn't the same as being repeatedly targeted and publicly slut-shamed for almost half your life and being wholly fed up with it. And she isn't doing it just for herself - she is standing up for everyone who experiences that. She is a young woman who has had relationships (like millions of other young women) but gets criticised/mocked/shamed for it.
Someone mentioned that men get called out too for their many relationships. Please, please, please don't say we are saying that men get treated the same as women for having 'many' (how many even is many?!? What is the acceptable number of past relationships someone is allowed to have!?) ex-partners. A woman with 'many' exes gets called a slut. What is a man? A 'womaniser'...? We can all see the narrative and language used for women in those situations are different. Not everyone does it, but enough people do it for their to be an obvious double-standard when it comes to men and women and their dating history.
When she was really young she would write songs about love and breakups and heartache that she had absolutely no experience of - she says that herself. She says she got ideas from movies and books and people around her and used that to write songs when she was really young - like 10/11/12/13 years young. Then when she was older and started dating, she used those experiences to write songs (we largely assume that where she hasn't confirmed) - about her own life. And got crucified for it. 'She just dates people so she can break up with them and write songs about them!' was (and still is) the narrative. Apart from Dear John, I don't think there is a song where you can easily identify an ex partner. The circus around the songs are mainly media and fan driven. Only because I like her and consume a lot of her interviews, I learned that not every song she writes is about her. Sometimes its about the experiences of family/friends, sometimes it's just her mind going off on its own. But it doesn't stop people being lazy and looking into every lyric and trying to attach it to an ex-partner.
This is one interview with Ellen 7 years ago and this is just a snippet of the crap she has gotten her whole life. This is one interview, and probably more light-hearted (dreadful expression but I can't think of another one) than some of the stuff she got/gets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRXVuIsVBnI&feature=youtu.beHow was/is this stuff OK? And again, it's one interview. She is an absolute superstar - she gets so much coverage and so much of it was like this. Just an inference that she dated someone, slept with someone. Over 10-12 years that shit builds up - she gets a reputation. It tries to define her. I can't imagine how draining that was/is. And i think now she has just had enough of it and will rightly fight back.
I think she is pissed at Netflix because she did the Miss Americana documentary with them and really opened up about her life and we heard things in her own words for the first time - the sexual assault, the stalkers in her bed, the eating disorder, disappearing for a year etc... I am not sure what their part in all of this is or what they could/should have done if anything, but yeah I think her anger should be directed at the writers of the show. Even if they are women - just because a woman wrote it, doesn't mean it's right.
And hey, it's not even funny. Or current.
I just think it's really lazy and shit for people to look at the line and see her response and go 'Oh she's a bit sensitive - she is overreacting. Silly girl.' Without any knowledge of what she has been through or had to experience. We are so quick just to dismiss people and how they feel in the name of humour and also a tinge of 'she can cry into her mountains of money.'
This is a separate thing, but do people feel remorse or guilt for things they've said/done in the past that they looked back on now and think how wrong it was to take part? I cringe so hard thinking back and the things I would have laughed at and joined in with, to the point you almost feel hypocritical now for judging and hating on people who do it now. I find that a lot in my personal life at the moment - straying from people I don't have things in common with anymore but questioning if that is hypocritical because I never said anything at the time or joined in, something like the comment in question - another time, another person at the centre of it and I maybe would have found it funny or no big deal. Maybe it's just growing up or how things are changing, I dunno, but I think about it a lot.
