Taylor Swift Explains Why She Is a Feminist

Taylor Swift has opened up in a new interview with The Guardian about why she's come to embrace a more feminist stance.

"As a teenager, I didn’t understand that saying you’re a feminist is just saying that you hope women and men will have equal rights and equal opportunities," the 24-year-old said. "What it seemed to me, the way it was phrased in culture, society, was that you hate men. And, now, I think a lot of girls have had a feminist awakening because they understand what the word means. For so long it’s been made to seem like something where you’d picket against the opposite sex, whereas it’s not about that at all."

Taylor's friendship with Lena Dunham appears to have played a part in her view. The pair became friends when the creator of Girls sent her a DM via Twitter saying “Can we be friends please?”

"Becoming friends with Lena — without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for — has made me realize that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so."