Taylor Swift will roll out a fresh song tonight, in advance of a new album this fall, her first since her monster smash 1989 came out three years ago.
This follows her recent court victory against a former radio DJ, who sexually assaulted her by grabbing her rear end underneath her skirt during a meet-and-greet photo session before a concert in 2013.
Swift, her manager and her mother tried to deal with it quietly, by filing a complaint to David Mueller's employer.
The radio station fired him with little fanfare but rather than admit his crime and move on, he filed a $3 million lawsuit against Swift, who subsequently sued the man back for $1.
Sadly, this episode just exposes the fact that even one of the most powerful women in the entertainment world is fair game for sexual assault from a man who sees women as sexual objects available for his personal gratification.
This should come as no surprise, of course. Americans elected a president in Donald Trump who feels exactly the same way.
They voted for him even though he condoned sexual violence against women in a conversation with a TV host in 2005 that was caught on tape.
Frequent letter writer and local Trump apologist Art Betke scolds me in his letter below for putting words in Trump's mouth in my editorial last week so let me be clear. Trump said his fame and wealth means he can "grab them by the pussy."
In the same conversation, Trump went on to say that when he was attempting to seduce a married woman, he "moved on her like a bitch."
His words, not mine.
To all of the columnists, letter writers and online contributors still making excuses for a 71-year-old man who should know better, this is your guy.
He is The Donald, after all.
But hey, even Taylor Swift is - literally - up for grabs.
The autonomy of a woman's body is not a political issue, of course. Regardless of anyone's political persuasion, even the most misogynist slob out there would have to admit that all women should be free from fear of unwanted sexual touching and have the full freedom to both grant or withhold hugs to overly friendly fellas looking for a squeeze. That is not a conservative or liberal point of debate. That is a human right and it is the law.
Perhaps this is what Trump means by seeking to "make America great again," to go back to that swell time when wives were property that did what their fathers and husbands told them to do and couldn't file rape charges against their spouse, to that wonderful era when women couldn't drive, vote, attend university or hold any position of social or political power.
Much has changed but women - our sisters, our mothers, our daughters and our partners - remain second-class citizens in modern society and any man that can't admit that is either blissfully ignorant of the life experience of half of the population or is willfully denying the benefits of his male privilege.
Swift was grilled on the witness stand by a lawyer who asked why she was smiling during the photo, who asked why she didn't speak up immediately, who even thanked Mueller for coming to the show.
Every woman - and every man who bothers to ask - knows the answer. From the youngest age, girls are still taught to smile, still taught to be quiet, still taught to be gracious.
The woman who doesn't smile must be depressed (or worse). The woman who speaks up is just full of herself and needs to listen more. The abrupt, aggressive, take charge woman is bossy and needs to be put in her place.
To this day, women routinely blame themselves for sexual assault or any negative social encounter with a man. I shouldn't have dressed that way. I shouldn't have looked at him that way. I shouldn't have said it that way. I must be at fault. I must apologize.
Combine that prevailing self-doubt with the arrogance of petty men, particularly the ones whose inability to control their anger, the volume of their voice and their rudeness are thrust into positions of responsibility for demonstrating passionate leadership and are celebrated as a "man's man."
Ironically, it is these men who are the first to cry unfair when their chauvinism is challenged, their sexism is ridiculed and their misogyny is punished.
They grumble that they are the victims of reverse-sexism and political correctness. They whine about the erosion of traditional values.
They stomp their feet and use fancy words like demasculinization to legitimize their pain.
They yearn for a better time, when "girls were girls and men were men."
They vote to make America great again.
To paraphrase Swift, no woman should have to "shake it off" when any man attempts to dominate her.
That's the tune all men need to march to.
-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
