Taylor Swift Got Married and Here's Why That Feels Like Such a Big Deal

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married, and the fans are practically foaming at the mouth for all the details (it's me, I'm "the fans").

Elsewhere on the Internet, people are calling the fascination with the wedding and all of its details "parasocial" and "weird". But here's the thing: This is about more than just the fact that a generational superstar got married.

For women, especially millennial women, there's this narrative that you can be one type of women or another: You can be the kind who is ambitious, successful, independent: The kind of woman who centers career. Or, you can be the kind of woman whose ultimate goal is marriage, motherhood, domesticity, who centers personal relationships.

And then there's Taylor Swift. Clearly, her professional success is paramount...but so is her love life. She's been telling us both of these things, overtly and subliminally, through every era of her career. Swift has been criticized for being too boy crazy, for writing too many songs about love and breakups. She's also been criticized for being too ambitious: For not "staying in her lane", for wanting too much attention and glory and money.

I'm not in any way saying she's the only woman who receives this type of criticism (we all do, that's the whole point!), or that she's the first woman who has wanted — and had — both professional success and romantic partnership.

But she's the most visible representation we have. The narratives we're sold as women affect us deeply, and when we see someone like Swift prove that the false binaries are just that — false — it gives us all collective permission to exist outside the lines. To want things we're told are at odds with one another. To be this type of woman and that type of woman, because ultimately, we're not types at all...we're multifaceted humans who will inevitably feel misrepresented by the archetypes.

The girlboss/tradwife dichotomy is the most timely, recent iteration of this, and on her most recent album, Swift openly tells us she's "married to the hustle"...and that she wants a couple kids and driveway with a basketball hoop. The public lost their minds, even calling Swift a "tradwife" for the latter sentiment.

But as it turns out, she didn't have to trade the Cartier for someone to trust. She didn't have to choose between ambition and love, and neither do we.