Nearly 72,000 people subscribe to this newsletter. But under 10 percent are paying subscribers. If you like this newsletter and support it, become a paying subscriber. I promise, this is the only time I’ve written about Taylor Swift and will most likely be the last time. (Unless you’d like me to write about her more. In which case, let’s talk.)
Where were you when you heard the news that one of the most talented and wealthy single women in America was getting married? Me? I was trying to read a book, just 24 hours after getting dumped by a guy who was uncomfortable with my career.
The deluge of posts, hot takes, videos, and memes already beginning to flood the internet have little to do with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce themselves. Grown women posted that they were crying. The Wendy’s account on Threads posted, “I can’t believe we got Travis Swift before we got gta6.” The New York Times did a push alert; so did ESPN. The president wished the couple “a lot of luck” during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
From the wedding of Isabella and Ferdinand to the union of Mr. and Mrs. Swift, every highly publicized union is idealized because it makes a fairy tale feel like it’s within reach. Sometimes that fantasy is wealth, beauty, glamour, or a distraction from poverty. In this case, what resonates for many women — who will undoubtedly be scolded for fawning over this royal American wedding — is that this fairy tale features an ambitious and successful woman actually finding a supportive partner.
I don’t know either of these people. And I am not convinced this isn’t some sort of very successful business deal. But who cares? Taylor Swift writes great songs about shitty men and profits from it; good for her!
Also, most of our parents married for worse reasons than record sales.
I am also not trying to project into the interiority of the lives of these celebrities. But the image they are projecting to us is that a successful woman has found a supportive partner, one who eagerly fawns over her new album cover while interviewing her for his own podcast.
This reality is far from reality for most American women.
Since January, 212,000 women have left the workforce, while 44,000 men have joined it. Women’s participation in the workforce peaked as flexible work-from-home policies allowed them more readily to juggle career and family. But under the Trump administration, those policies are being rescinded. Meanwhile, laws that gut reproductive rights and narrow access to childcare, healthcare, and SNAP benefits will do more to push ambitious, educated women out of the workforce and limit their economic power and personal freedom. And a spiritual leader who opposes women having the right to vote has the ear of the president’s Cabinet.
Women who do succeed are often punished for it. Studies show that women who out-earn their husbands are 33 percent more likely to be victims of domestic violence and 22 percent more likely to be victims of emotional abuse.
Women who out-earn their husbands still do more childcare and domestic labor. And overwhelmingly, studies show that male partners, no matter how much they earn or how little they earn, how much they work, or no matter how flexible or inflexible their jobs are, are still not doing much domestic labor or childcare.
These are all passive forms of punishment for women who seek career success and financial security. Women who speak out are often met with outright misogyny or cutting remarks.
And all of this is happening as social media posts and think pieces declare the end of ambition, from #girlboss to #girlmoss. Author Stefanie O’Connell, who has a new book about ambition coming out in 2026, observed in her newsletter:
As a millennial woman reckoning with my own disillusionment with the 2010s girlboss era, its obsession with hustle culture, and the broken promise that getting what you want is as easy as asking for it, I too became obsessed with this reevaluation of ambition. During the five years I spent researching and writing my own book about it (out in 2026), I watched as these anti-ambition trends took hold… and evolved — from the #softlife to #feminineenergy to the #tradwife (short for “traditional” wife) — each promising to unlock a new layer of leisure, satisfaction and meaning as it limited women’s ambitions to a smaller and smaller window.
I, too, have struggled with ambition. I have a lot of it and it isn’t going away. But I am also exhausted. I’m so sick of succeeding in spite of everything around me. I’m tired of having a job and still doing the majority of the emotional and domestic labor for my kids while my ex, who is remarried, complains about how I maintain the shared calendar.
Every time I succeed, there’s a downside. The hate mail gets worse. The man I am dating backs away. A tabloid publishes a scathing story about me. I’m so, so tired.
The fantasy that Swift and Kelce are selling isn’t romance; it’s not even equality. It’s a fantasy world where a woman can be successful and her partner won’t be mad about it.
I felt your “I have ambition, it’s not going anywhere, but I am exhausted” line in my bone marrow’s bone marrow.
Your work brings joy and comfort to thousands, including me. If that dude doesn’t get that he belongs in Friday’s newsletter.
I feel this in every cell. I recently dipped my toe back into the world of dating after a l-o-n-g hiatus and the whole thing just makes me deeply tired. Also, my kid just started culinary school and had to buy a chef quality set of kitchen knives. I found myself thinking those knives were sexier and more useful than most of the single men I encounter.
Also, also fuck that guy.