Taylor Swift calls out Netflix, 'Ginny & Georgia' for 'deeply sexist joke' about her dating life

Taylor Swift has a bone to pick with Netflix and its new show Ginny & Georgia for using a “deeply sexist joke” about the singer’s dating life. The new series is about a teenager named Ginny (Antonia Gentry), and her young mother, Georgia (Brianne Howey) and the final episode of the series dropped on Netflix last week.

In the moment in question, Georgia asks her daughter if she’s been dating someone new. “What do you care? You go through men faster than Taylor Swift,” Ginny responds in the episode. Taylor shared the quote on her Twitter account Monday with her own response.

“Hey Ginny & Georgia, 2010 called and it wants its lazy, deeply sexist joke back,” the 31-year-old singer tweeted. “How about we stop degrading hard working women by defining this horse s–t as FuNnY.”

Swift added, “Also, @Netflix after Miss Americana this outfit doesn’t look cute on you. Happy Women’s History Month I guess.” The “Love Story” singer pointed out her previous partnership with Netflix for the release of her two specials, her 2018 Reputation concert special and the 2020 documentary Miss Americana. 

After the episode aired, Swifties everywhere took to Twitter and “RESPECT TAYLOR SWIFT” began to trend. Others drew attention to a similar comment made in Degrassi: Next Class, which also streams on Netflix. A character in the show said, “Taylor Swift made an entire career off of her exes.”

Swift's fans have even created a Change.org petition asking for Netflix to apologize to the singer and remove the comment from the episode of Ginny & Georgia. "Despite its seemingly progressive nature, Netflix's latest TV series Ginny & Georgia contradicts this in a blatant display of misogyny through slut-shaming," the petition reads. "In Series 1, Episode 10 of the series, viewers witness the character Ginny tell Georgia that she 'goes through men faster than Taylor Swift.' This isn't just the rehash of a 'joke,' this is the perpetuation of a deeply misogynistic narrative."

The petition goes on to say that Swift has been painted as a "serial dater" by the media for over a decade and slut-shaming the singer has been normalized "to such an extent that Taylor has been dehumanized - reducing her from a confident and inspirational woman to merely a throwaway remark." The petition argues that if Taylor were a man, the jokes about her dating life would not exist. 

The petition is asking Netflix to "unreservedly apologize for the remark in Ginny & Georgia, simultaneously apologizing to Taylor Swift." It's also asking the streaming service to remove the remark from the show as well as similar remarks from other Netflix Original series and wants Netflix to pledge "to ensure that no future Netflix Original shows perpetuate misogynistic narratives." As of this writing, the petition has over 4,000 signatures with a goal of 5,000.

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Swift has been criticized for her dating life for years, which, TBH, is really none of our business. She has been keeping her relationship with actor Joe Alwyn pretty private since they began dating in 2017. Taylor has been previously linked to other celebrities including Calvin Harris, Tom Hiddleston (remember Hiddleswift?), Harry Styles, Conor Kennedy, Jake Gyllenhaal, Taylor Lautner (back in 2009), Joe Jonas and John Mayer. 

In November 2020, the "Blank Space" singer revealed (speaking to Paul McCartney) that her song "Peace" is about her relationship with Alwyn. “‘Peace’ is actually more rooted in my personal life. I know you have done a really excellent job of this in your personal life: carving out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you meet someone, especially if you’ve met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living," she told McCartney in her Rolling Stone cover story. 

"I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives,” the Grammy-winning singer added. "I can't control if there's going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow."

McCartney asked her if her partner could "sympathize with that and understand," and she said, "Oh, absolutely."

"I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids," she explained.

Alwyn has remained pretty private about his relationship with Swift. “I’m aware people want to know about that side of things,” he told British Vogue in Sept. 2018. “I think we have been successfully very private, and that has now sunk in for people ... I really prefer to talk about work.”

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