What Taylor Swift Teaches Us About Women, Influence, and Economic Power with Misty L. Heggeness | 400

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil

Episode: What Taylor Swift Teaches Us About Women, Influence, and Economic Power with Misty L. Heggeness | 400
Date: April 1, 2026
Host: Nicole Kalil
Guest: Misty L. Heggeness, Associate Professor and author of Swiftenomics

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Episode Overview

This episode explores how Taylor Swift’s cultural and economic influence reflects—and drives forward—the evolving power of women in today’s economy. Host Nicole Kalil and economist Misty L. Heggeness discuss Swiftenomics: the ways in which women’s work, both seen and unseen, is reshaping the marketplace, challenging old norms, and rewriting the playbook for economic influence. This is not a fan podcast, but rather a serious conversation about women’s economic power, how traditional metrics and mindsets fail to value women’s contributions, and why the Swift phenomenon is both a case study and a metaphor for change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining “Swiftenomics” and Women’s Invisible Labor

• Definition: Swiftenomics is “really about us as a society, recognizing the value and economic contributions that women have brought to economic growth, to the workplace, and to all the spheres of society and the economy outside of our homes.” – Misty (05:30)
• Invisible labor: Misty emphasizes the societal and economic undervaluing of unpaid and invisible labor, such as caregiving and domestic work.
  • Notable Stat: “If you look at economic activity, women on average do one additional hour of economic activity a day. Conversely, men have one extra hour of leisure a day...that’s like two to three additional months of economic activity that women are doing in our society relative to men.” – Misty (06:25)
• Skewed statistics: Official labor metrics often misrepresent women’s productivity and impact by ignoring unpaid and informal labor. (07:30)

2. Women’s Economic Power and Shifting Influence

• Power equals impact: Nicole draws a connection between economic impact and real-world power. Misty agrees but points out that while advances are happening, the impact is bigger than most people recognize. (08:31)
• Generational change: There are more women in leadership than ever before, influencing content and commerce for other women.
  • Examples: Barbie movie, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company, the first US stadium built specifically for a women’s professional soccer team (Kansas City Current). (09:50)
• Pushback and hope: Misty sees the current backlash as a sign of progress, not retreat. (“We’ve kind of poked the bear enough on traditional norms...people who want those traditional norms are pushing back, but it doesn’t mean women have stopped advancing.”) (10:30)

3. Consumer Spending and Market Response

• Women as market movers: “Women drive about 80% of consumer spending. We are in big decision-making seats here.” – Nicole (paraphrased, 06:00)
• Markets are adapting: Savvy companies are responding to women's increased economic clout by creating content and products for female consumers. Those who don’t will lose market share in the long run. (12:15)
• Demographic trends: Higher female education rates, delayed/lower fertility, and a search for fulfilling careers contribute to this shift. (13:00)

4. Equity Benefits Everyone—Including Men

• Rebalancing roles: Nicole and Misty discuss the advantages for men in more balanced homes and societies—greater involvement at home, less pressure as sole providers, and more holistic fulfillment.
  • “If women are coming up and men are going down, some of the things that we look at them going down, I actually perceive that as them going up. Men being more engaged in family, to me, that’s a positive.” – Nicole (15:23)
• Equity ≠ loss of power: Both see that more equitable societies and workplaces benefit everyone. However, Misty notes some rebalancing (“men are going to have to climb down a little bit”) is necessary for women’s advancement. (14:39–16:40)

5. Why Taylor Swift as a Case Study?

• Misty’s reasoning: Taylor is “an incredible muse in thinking about how she maneuvered situations and how she handled herself” in a male-dominated, highly scrutinized industry. (21:55)
  • Taylor’s career as a microcosm of women’s economic progress: from being dismissed as a country songwriter for teen girls to proving doubters wrong and dominating the global economy.
• Role model status: Taylor’s authenticity, artistic control, and business savvy subvert expectations (“She didn’t just change an industry, she changed the economy.” – Nicole 04:03)

6. Society’s Discomfort with Women’s Power

• Strong opinions & backlash: The resistance and criticism Taylor faces reflect broader discomfort with women’s confidence and power.
  • “We live in a very misogynistic society and that means you don't just have to be male to have misogynistic tendencies or to think about stereotypes in a certain way.” – Misty (25:56)
• Redefining power: Taylor is unapologetically feminine yet powerful—challenging the idea that women must emulate men to be taken seriously.

7. Are Women Ready for Confident, Powerful Female Role Models?

• Collective readiness: Misty challenges women to “get fucking ready” for more success and leadership, and to stop pushing the agenda from the shadows. (29:24)
• Modeling confidence: Authentically confident, successful women like Taylor Swift are crucial role models for girls and women navigating sexist structures and stereotypes.

8. Broader Takeaways for Women & Society

• Value invisible labor: Economic recognition and policy support are needed for unpaid and invisible labor.
• Learn from the past: Inspiration and progress come from understanding women’s collective achievements across generations.
• Women as key consumers: Marketers and content creators must invest in understanding and serving female consumers across all categories, not just “traditional” women’s products. (30:36)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Nicole: “If you can't shut your pie hole long enough to acknowledge, respect and appreciate what [Taylor Swift] has accomplished...shut the fuck up. This woman didn’t just change an industry, she changed the economy.” (03:51–04:03)
• Misty Heggeness on women’s unpaid work: “That’s like two to three additional months of economic activity that women are doing in our society relative to men.” (06:25)
• Misty Heggeness: “We need to lean into that [confident, authentic female leadership]. Women are used to kind of pushing the agenda from the shadows. I don’t think Taylor does that... And we need more Taylors in the world.” (29:24)
• Nicole: “I do not advocate for women at the expense of men. I am not anti-men...But sometimes companies, they'll post...their leadership team and it's 100% men and I'm like, not my company.” (11:50)
• Misty Heggeness: “The rigid, stereotypical or traditional...family formation that's really hard-driven by gendered expectations...does a disservice for women [and] also for men.” (16:59)
• Misty Heggeness: “When Taylor was a teenager, she wanted to write songs about other teenage girls and do it with country music. And the country music executives said, thanks, but no thanks... Well, boy, were they wrong.” (30:36)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:31–04:28] – Setting the tone: why Swiftenomics matters and redefinition of “woman’s work”
• [05:30–08:40] – Misty defines Swiftenomics; the value of invisible labor and hidden women’s economic activity
• [08:45–11:16] – Discussion of economic power, women’s rising leadership, and historic trends
• [12:15–14:39] – Shifts in consumer spending, education, market adaptation, and company pushback
• [14:39–17:58] – How equity benefits everyone; rebalancing domestic and professional roles, impact on men
• [21:55–25:56] – Why Taylor Swift is the case study: authenticity, overcoming doubters, her economic impact
• [25:56–29:24] – Societal resistance, internalized sexism, and readiness for women’s power
• [30:36–32:27] – Concluding thoughts: supporting invisible labor, learning from history, the future of women’s economic influence

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Conclusion

This episode reframes Taylor Swift not just as an entertainment icon but as an economic phenomenon—symbolizing both visible and invisible forms of women's economic power. The conversation urges listeners to recognize, support, and celebrate women’s work in all its forms, to question metrics that undervalue women’s contributions, and to be unapologetic about seeking and supporting women’s leadership in every sphere.

Final thought:
“We need to lean into [female leadership], celebrate it, and see that women owning their choices, their work and their power is how the economy shifts...It’s how everything shifts. It’s how we change the rules and the game, and all of that is woman’s work.” – Nicole & Misty (33:06–33:17)

Transcript

[Nicole]

As an entrepreneur, one of my biggest learnings has been this there is no magical unicorn person out there who can do everything. And also I don't want a huge team of people to manage, which puts me in a bit of a pickle because my business spans operations, strategy and analytics, marketing and a wide variety of tech. And no one person is great at all of it. Which is exactly why I've leaned into hiring freelancers. Upwork is a one step platform to find, hire and pay expert freelancers. So instead of trying to force one

[Kahlil]

person to do everything, or worse, doing

[Nicole]

it all myself, I can bring in the exact expertise I need when I need it. Upwork helps grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent across 125 plus categories so you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster and scale support up or down without committing to full time headcount. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's up w o r k.com Upwork.com There are parts of running a business that I care deeply about and feel like I'm pretty good at. And then there are parts that I just know I will never excel at. Things like payroll, HR forms, tax filings. Really anything that involves important paperwork that can't be ignored but somehow I can never seem to figure out. And that's where Gusto comes in. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote, friendly and incredibly easy to use so you can pay, hire, onboard and support your team from anywhere. It handles things like automatic payroll, tax filing, direct deposits, benefits, all the details that can get messy real fast. And it saves time with built in tools like onboarding docs and offer letters. So the things you're not great at still get done right. Try gusto [e-mail] tiww and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free [e-mail] tiwww one more time gusto.com tiww foreign. Kahlil and you're listening to the this

[Kahlil]

Is Woman's Work podcast where together we're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today.

[Nicole]

From boardrooms to studios, kitchens to coding

[Kahlil]

dens, and at least for today, from

[Nicole]

Grammys to multi billion dollar tours. Yes, at first glance this episode might

[Kahlil]

seem like an unexpected turn or an Odd topic for us to cover, but

[Nicole]

I can assure you it's about as on brand as it gets.

[Kahlil]

Because today we're talking about Swiftenomics using

[Nicole]

Taylor Swift as a very real, very

[Kahlil]

data backed lesson and how women are redefining our economy. This is not a fan girl episode though. Full transparency.

[Nicole]

I'm absolutely a fan. I have a 12 year old daughter.

[Kahlil]

I have my own favorite Taylor Swift song that I listen to on repeat

[Nicole]

even when she's not in the car.

[Kahlil]

And look, you do not have to like her music. Taste is subjective.

[Nicole]

Some people's favorite genres make me want to jam a pen in my eye. And you don't have to like her either. You are always the decider here. But what I will not concede, what I genuinely cannot understand is how any woman could dismiss or diminish what she has done.

[Kahlil]

You don't like her sound, fine.

[Nicole]

You don't connect to her lyrics, cool. But if you can't shut your pie hole long enough to acknowledge, respect and

[Kahlil]

appreciate what she has accomplished, her success,

[Nicole]

ownership, power and opportunity in an industry that was never built with her in mind, well then with all due respect,

[Kahlil]

and in this case, the respect that's

[Nicole]

due is none, shut the fuck up. This woman didn't just change an industry, she changed the economy. And none of us, not you, not me, have ever even come close to that level of impact. So today we're not talking about Taylor

[Kahlil]

Swift as a pop star.

[Nicole]

We're talking about her as a working woman. A case study, a signal and a mirror for women's economic power that has

[Kahlil]

been hiding in plain sight for decades. So yeah, this conversation matters.

[Nicole]

And that's why we're having it with somebody who actually understands the data behind the devotion.

[Kahlil]

Misty Hegenas is an associate professor in

[Nicole]

the School of Public affairs and Administration

[Kahlil]

and an associate research scientist at the

[Nicole]

Institute for Policy and Social Research at

[Kahlil]

the University of Kansas.

[Nicole]

She's spent more than a decade leading

[Kahlil]

high profile economic research that informs federal government decision making, focusing on poverty and inequality, gender, economics, economic demography and the high skilled workforce. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, npr, the Economist, Science, and she is the author of the upcoming book Swiftenomics How

[Nicole]

Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy.

[Kahlil]

Misty, welcome to the show. And I think that the obvious best place to start is to ask you to define Swiftenomics. What are we talking about here?

[Misty Hegenas]

Yeah, Nicole, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to chat with you about this topic and to be here today. Swiftenomics for me is really about us as a society, recognizing the value and economic contributions that women have brought to economic growth, to the workplace, and to all the spheres of society and the economy outside of our homes.

[Kahlil]

Yeah, okay. And that is, I think, a lot more substantial than we often hear or think or give credit to. So could you give us some data, give us some information about what that means? And looks like I've heard somewhere that like, women drive about 80% of consumer spending. I mean, we are in big decision making seats here. So. Okay. All that to say, can you give us some data that sort of backs up this claim?

[Misty Hegenas]

Yeah. So for me, where this all really started is just when I took on my role as a caregiver in my family. So I have two teenage kids right now, and it shouldn't really matter whether or not I am making a meal for my family in my house, or whether I am working as a cook in a restaurant, as to whether or not society values that contribution in terms of quantifying it and recognizing it. So I'm a nerdy statistician. I worked in the federal government and statistical agencies for many years. And so I've seen how we develop economic statistics and we tend to often undervalue and or ignore all of the economic activity that women do. And so part of my goal with this book is to bring all of that work and effort to the forefront. And that includes unpaid labor. It includes some of the invisible labor that we do with our families. One of my most favorite statistics is to look at the amount of economic activity individuals do on any given day. And regardless of whether or not they're paid a wage for that activity. If you look at, instead of wage labor, if you look at economic activity, women on average do one hour, one additional hour of economic activity a day. That conversely, men have one extra hour of leisure a day. And that may not seem like much. Washing a load of clothes, you know, cooking a meal, cooking dinner. But when you add that up over a year, that's like two to three additional months of economic activity that women are doing in our society relative to men. And when we think about the economy and we think about capturing some of these, this activity and statistics, we often think about labor force participation where, you know, for example, men who have children, their labor force participation is about, you know, above 95%. For women with children, it's, you know, between 60 to 70. Now, it's up to about 75%. And so if we look at the indicators that we are measuring ourselves by officially or formally, it looks like women are less active and less productive, when actually the opposite is true.

[Kahlil]

Okay, so I equate economic impact with power. Is that a fair connection or. We're undervaluing that power in so many ways. Can we talk a little bit about that? What's your perspective?

[Misty Hegenas]

Yeah, for me, the way that I try to understand this is by looking generationally at kind of the way that women's economic power has ebb and flowed over, over the history of the course of time. And one thing that's clear to me, and it became clear to me by doing the research for this book, is that we have more women in positions of power within businesses and within government today than we ever have. We have more women in management and executive suite positions still. It's not at parity, but we have more. And so what's happening today and what makes it different from the past is that these women are in those positions and they are engaging in activities that support female content, that support female investment. And the product of that is you're seeing things like the Barbie movie being made. You're seeing things like the Eras tour being developed and going around tour. You're seeing, you know, Reese Witherspoon came out with a company called hello Sunshine, and that was basically, you know, her response to Hollywood executives, predominantly men only, really investing in content that was specific or attractive to a male audience. And she wanted to have more content out there that really spoke to the needs and desires of women. And so the fact that we are seeing women move into positions of power today where they are having influence over consumer content, where they are having influence over developing, you know, the next generation of, whether it's movies or, you know, think about women's sports. And I live in Kansas City, and we have the professional women's sports team, Casey Current, who just two or three years ago built the first stadium for. Solely for the purpose of a women's professional soccer team. So that's what I'm trying to celebrate in this book is that even though we're in times that seem contentious, even though we're in times where it seems like we're backsliding, you know, that gives me hope because it means that, you know, in some sense, we've kind of poked the bear enough on traditional norms that people who want those traditional norms are pushing back. But it doesn't mean that women have stopped advancing and fighting and developing, you know, content that's meaningful for them, and that is, I think, unique to this era, and we should celebrate it.

[Kahlil]

I'm curious. This thought kept going through my head. Obviously, this podcast being called this is Woman's Work is an example of something that's created by a woman with women in mind. And I think about that and I try to support that everywhere I see it. And then the flip side too is I often pay attention or choose not to support things that feel anti women. Like sometimes companies, they'll post like something with their leadership team and it's a hundred percent men. And I'm like, not my company.

[Nicole]

Sorry, work with someone else. Right.

[Kahlil]

And I do not advocate for women at the expense of men. I am not anti men. But do you see any sort of economic backlash or results that show that women are taking their dollars and their power elsewhere when it comes to maybe the more traditional content or products that were created without women in mind?

[Misty Hegenas]

I mean, and I think it comes down to what I was speaking to earlier, which is just that every time throughout history where women have pushed forward enough to make advances in certain spaces that have made others uncomfortable, you do feel this pushback. And, you know, I think that's the moment that we're in right now. It doesn't worry me because, you know, women aren't going anywhere. And I think it's actually, you know, diversifying the market and diversifying consumer content is generally considered a good thing in a capitalist society. So having more content that's, that's created for the female consumer is good. And I think the reason why you're seeing businesses tap into that today is really because, you know, you have, women have higher levels of education today than they ever have in the past. You know, women more and more are searching for careers, not jobs. Women are, you know, less likely to have children. And if they do have children, they have them later. And so all of those things are creating a source of economic power within communities of women across the nation. And again, I think that's a good thing. And the companies that resist the companies maybe who are all male dominated or who don't want to invest in or see this space, you know, in the long run they'll lose out. Like, you know, economic theory will tell you that. And so it's more, I think what we need to do today is really craft a discourse and a discussion where we're talking across genders, we're talking to each other, not at each other. And couples today are more interested in equity, not only in the office and in the workplace, but also in the home. And, and I think that's where the discussions really need to, you know, we need more of those discussions and at a faster pace, especially for those who are concerned about younger generations and whether or not they want to build families. Of course they want to, but the incentives are different.

[Kahlil]

Yeah. I personally believe that striving for equity benefits all of us across genders. And I know that sometimes feels hard to believe that when we advocate for women, I think sometimes it feels like men are losing. But that is not, at least not my intention. And that doesn't. It doesn't seem to be supported by any evidence. If anything, we all get better in more equitable societies and opportunities.

[Misty Hegenas]

But can I just jump off that really quick? Because I feel like, you know, I'm okay with men not doing as good today as they have in the past, because in the past they've had such a huge advantage. And, you know, in order for women to kind of climb up a little bit, men are going to have to climb down a little bit. Right. And so whether that means men, you know, take on more care responsibilities in the home or, you know, rebalance that so that women can stay more attached to their jobs, like, I don't know, but invisible labor and domestic labor is time intensive and time specific. And so it's really impossible for us to have some sort of belief that we're going to be able to pull women up to the level that men are right now and nothing else is going to give. Like, that's just not possible.

[Kahlil]

Yeah. So that's really interesting. And I was thinking, like, what. What was going on in my brain when I said that? And it's interesting because you're right. And I kind of think some of the. If women are coming up and men are going down, some of the things that we look at them going down, I actually perceive that as them going up. So I'll give the example. Men being more engaged in family, to me, that's a positive. Yes. I get all of the work, you know, mental workload and the house, like, we don't always enjoy that, but it's more enjoyable when it's shared.

[Misty Hegenas]

Yeah.

[Kahlil]

And if they pick up a little and we lose a little, I actually think we'll both feel a little bit better at the end of the day. I do find, and maybe it's just a circle I run with, but I do find that men want to be more involved in their family. They want to have more of a balanced life and career. They want to be very active and involved in parenting. And so, yes, I am okay. Especially with the mediocre man who's been given every opportunity because of who they know and who they golf with. I am absolutely okay with them having to set back in order for us to step forward.

[Misty Hegenas]

Yeah.

[Kahlil]

But I don't perceive it across the

[Nicole]

board to be that way.

[Kahlil]

I do think that there is a benefit to men to have more balanced, more engaged involvement, having happiness come from other aspects of their life besides just providing and success and all of that.

[Nicole]

Your thoughts there?

[Misty Hegenas]

Yeah, I mean, I agree, you know, the, the rigid, stereotypical or traditional kind of family formation that's really hard driven by gendered expectations. Not only is it does it do a disservice for women, it also does a disservice for men and exactly because of what you're saying. So I imagine it's not comfortable. So I'm in a two income family, but I imagine, you know, if I was the sole income provider for my family, that's a stressful space to be in. And so when we ascribe people roles based on their gender versus letting them find the ways in which they can and have the most fulfilling life and be the most productive because they're aligned with what their passions are and they're aligned with, you know, how they think, how they see themselves best fitting in the world. Like, you know, that's a much better space to live in and you know that's not going to be the same for all girls just like it's not the same for all boys.

[Nicole]

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[Kahlil]

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[Kahlil]

you really just hit on the mission of this show, you know, to redefine woman's work with a new definition being whatever feels true and real and right for you. You are the decider. And you know, under that definition, in theory, we could all do woman's work regardless of gender. Okay, so I have some notion as to why, but I'M ask the question anyway. Why choose Taylor Swift as the point person for this trend?

[Misty Hegenas]

Yeah, so that's a great question. You know, I come at this a little bit late, I would say, in the Taylor Swift fandom. I again, I was working in the leadership role in a statistical agency in the federal government when the album Lover came out. And I just happened to see on social media the music video for the man. And I just so over identified with the lyrics in that song. And then I thought the video was like over the top, such high quality. And you know, you make it to the end and, and you get this little surprise of, of who the man is. And it's just, it was so much fun. And so I started following Taylor then. That was in 2019. And then during the pandemic, you know, I was trapped in my house with my 10 and 12 year old and my spouse, just like so many of us were trapped in our, in our homes. I know I was trying to do economic research for my job and the only thing that I could really focus on was looking at what was going on with Mother's labor force participation. And so I published one of the first papers that came out on the effect of the pandemic closures on mom's labor supply. And I started interacting with journalists and you know, that's where I decided I wanted to write the book. And then during that same time, Taylor came out with folklore and evermore, you know, so during the pandemic she was just hyper productive. And I had kind of been following her career for a few years by then. And it just dawned on me that, you know, the way that we talk about women and the narrative that we have for women and women in work kind of at the national level and in society is so steeped in tradition and traditional roles. And what I was seeing in the data for women and women's work during the pandemic and Mother's work in particular, was very different. And it just dawned on me that Taylor's career path, you know, it is different. But you know, she's been so successful even as a woman in a very misogynistic industry and she's survived. And so I just started digging into more of the details of her career path and I just felt like she was such an incredible muse in thinking about how she maneuvered situations and how she handled herself. And I just thought she would be a great muse for the book, you know, in, in thinking about the modern economic woman.

[Kahlil]

Yeah, couldn't agree more. I knew of Taylor Swift, obviously And heard a few of her songs, wasn't a fan, but didn't have anything bad to say. Just, you know, was kind of indifferent until my daughter really got into her and we went to her concert and I know this is ridiculous, but Jay was able to get tickets and we weren't, did not have good seats, but we went kind of like, all right, let's see what this is about. It was the rainiest show she had ever done. We were at Gillette Stadium and it was dumping rain the entire time. Like, did not let up. She swiped water off the top of the piano and it just gushed like, I mean, I can't even. We were in ponchos and raincoats. And all I can tell you is none of the fans ever sat. And she did not let up for a second. She delivered every second at the highest level. She didn't shortened, she didn't complain. She didn't. And she won all of my respect in that experience. And then just paying attention to her since then. And yes, the things she's done for the economy in the cities she tours in, the way it seems she treats her team and her employees, how she stands up for herself, how she carries herself. Has she fought for ownership over her own music? I mean, there were so, so, so many examples. So that leads to my question, what are your thoughts? The stupid things that people say or the comments or the opinions? What does everybody's strong opinions against her tell us about how people feel about our economic power as women?

[Misty Hegenas]

Yeah, this is the other reason why I have her as the muse of this book. Because, you know, she has always been really authentic. You know, she's always leaned in, leaned into that authenticity of what she likes and what she wants to do and then leaned into really being authentic with her fans as well. And the fact of the matter is she is. Well, she's like 36 now, so she's not really young, young anymore. But, you know, she grew up in the industry as a young, white, blue eyed, blonde, skinny girl. And in our society we have a tendency to really devalue those characteristics and to assign those, those characteristics with somebody who's not smart or somebody who isn't worth paying attention to or, you know, I always laugh every time I hear somebody be really confused about Taylor's fame because it's just that I think we live in a very misogynistic society and that means that you don't just have to be male to be, to have, you know, misogynistic tendencies or to think about stereotypes. In a certain way. And one of the things that I think is really interesting about focusing on Taylor is that she's got a lot of characteristics that maybe feminist who don't follow her closely enough or don't listen to the lyrics that she writes, would assume, oh, she's not feminist enough for us, or on and on, yada, yada. But it's so fun to have somebody with her Persona who likes glitter, who likes cats, who, if she's not on stage performing and she's just walking around, she's pretty, like, gangly, you know, she's not very smooth. And it's just so fun to have seen somebody with all of those characteristics who. And to see her just excel, excel, excel. You know, nobody can hold her back. And that's the other reason, because I don't think that in order to be powerful women, you know, we need to ascribe to looking like men. And I think one of the things that Taylor does so authentically, again, is she has really, really strong female characteristics, but she really just leans in to her business and to her talent, and she really doesn't let all of the noise, you know, in the long run, bother her. Maybe at one point when she was younger, there were moments where it got in the way, but there's so many girls out there who will hear those negative comments and then internalize for themselves that they're worthless or they're not worth going down road A or road B for a career, or they just can think that they shouldn't be taken seriously because society continually doesn't take them seriously. And I think that those girls in particular have a lot to learn from Taylor in terms of flipping that around and not letting those stereotypes drive who you become.

[Kahlil]

Yeah. Listen, if I could create and choose a list of women to be a role model to my daughter, she is absolutely on the list, all those things. And then that leads me to my. I think big question is, do you think women specifically are ready for confident, business savvy, successful women like Taylor Swift, or are we holding each other and therefore ourselves back?

[Misty Hegenas]

Yeah, I mean, I. It's a great question. I don't know if we're ready, but we should be ready. Like, we should get fucking ready. Yeah. You know, like, let's. You know, let's lean into that. Like, let's. And again, it's one of the reasons why I chose Taylor, because I want to lean into that. Like, I. You know, we need to lean into that more. And, you know, women are used to kind of pushing the agenda from the shadows. And I don't. I don't think Taylor does that. I think she pushes the agenda right in front of us. She does it in very subtle ways. So, you know, my most favorite Taylor Swift songs are the songs that are very feminist in nature. You know, nobody. No crime, vigilante, shit, canceled. Like all of those that speak to what it's like to live in a society that might not believe you or that might underestimate you or that might tell stories or bad press about you for no reason. And I just. I think we need more Taylors in the world.

[Kahlil]

Honestly couldn't agree more. My last question is, I'm not an economics expert. That's why you're on the show. Are there any questions that I didn't ask about women in the economy that I should have?

[Misty Hegenas]

I don't think so. I mean, for me, the biggest takeaways and the biggest things for us to focus on is, again, valuing invisible labor. You know, getting society to value invisible labor, recognizing it, supporting it through social policies. I get a lot of strength from looking back into the past and looking what. How. What women have accomplished. And that's part of. There's a couple of chapters in my book where I talk about generations and I talk about motherhood. And I think that when we look back to what women have accomplished in the past, it's a big source of strength and support for those of us who are pushing forward for something better today. And so, you know, those are my. My big takeaways from an economic perspective. And I guess the last thing that I would say is, I think what Taylor has done since she was a teenager. When she was a teenager, she wanted to write songs about other teenage girls and do it with country music. And the country music executives said, thanks, but no thanks. We don't think that there's a consumer base there. We don't think we can make any money off of that. And, well, boy, were they wrong. And so, you know, one of the things that I think that gives me lots of joy in thinking about Taylor's career path is that she has really created so much content that is so relatable, really, for everybody, but in particular for women and content that we don't always here in the mainstream. And so, you know, I. I think today more than ever is. Is the day where marketers really need to be focusing on female consumers and what female consumers are interested in consuming. And. And, you know, it's no longer just the days of, you know, vacuums and dishwashers and whatever entertainment and things that give us joy. And so it's just a different world out there today and it's a better, better place for all of us to be.

[Kahlil]

So and one that I think we have so much more impact and power than we give ourselves credit. So for you, the listener, a reminder. The book is called Swiftynomics. You can go to swiftenomics.com or buy the book on Amazon or let's keep your local bookstores in business. Misty, thank you for being here today, for writing this book, and for reminding us all of the power that we all have and the respect that people like Taylor Swift are due. So thank you.

[Misty Hegenas]

Thanks, Nicole.

[Kahlil]

All right, friend. You do what's true and real and right for you.

[Nicole]

Full stop.

[Kahlil]

No negotiations.

[Nicole]

And when you see another woman doing

[Kahlil]

that too, instead of judging it, minimizing it, or rolling your eyes, let's celebrate it. Because women owning their choices, their work

[Nicole]

and their power is how the economy shifts.

[Kahlil]

It's how everything shifts. It's how we change the rules and the game and all of that is woman's work.

[Mick Sullivan]

Grown ups if there's a child in your life who is interested in, curious about or fascinated by people and places from history, then my podcast the Past and the Curious might just be a hit in your home. From the invention of microscopes to world traveling dogs to fashions of the 1890s, Gold Rush, Ghost towns and audiences going wild for walking competitions, we've got a little bit of it all. Hosted by children's author and museum educator Mick Sullivan. That's me. The show is fun, funny, engaging, honest, and beloved by kids and parents alike. Find the past and the curious at all the usual podcast places.