Entertainment Music Taylor Swift Sounds Off on Women Being 'More Than Incubators' — and Fans Are Really Relating Ahead of her 30th birthday, Taylor Swift is encouraging her young female fans to stand up for themselves By Melody Chiu Melody Chiu Melody Chiu is an Executive Editor at PEOPLE overseeing music, events and emerging content. She has been with the brand since 2009, editing, writing and reporting across all entertainment verticals. She has written cover stories on Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Melissa McCarthy, Blake Shelton, Jordan Turpin and Sandra Oh. The Los Angeles native graduated from the University of Southern California and has appeared on Extra!, The Talk, Access Hollywood and Good Morning America. People Editorial Guidelines Published on December 5, 2019 03:10PM EST Taylor Swift is standing up for young women who are tired of being asked when they’re settling down. The superstar — who is celebrated as one of four People of the Year in PEOPLE’s latest issue — shut down a question earlier this year during an interview in which she was asked about marriage and family because of her impending 30th birthday. Sitting down with PEOPLE, the singer explained that women should certainly feel empowered to bat away questions like that in any situation. “The more women are able to voice their discomfort in social situations, the more it becomes the social norm that people who ask the questions at parties like ‘When are you going to start a family?’ to someone as soon as they turn 25 are a little bit rude,” says Swift. Taylor Swift Shuts Down Interview Question About ‘Settling Down’: Men Aren’t ‘Asked That Question’ Acknowledging that “it’s gonna take a bit for people to catch up with that,” Swift added that she has started to see a bit of a shift in society. “It’s good that we’re allowed to say, ‘Hey, just so you know, we’re more than incubators. You don’t have to ask that of someone just because they’re in their mid-20s and they’re a female.” Miller Mobley For more on 2019’s People of the Year, click here and pick up this week’s issue, on stands Friday, Dec. 6. In her early 20s, the 10-time Grammy winner was scrutinized and often harassed for having a dating life, and she found similar inspiration from Alanis Morissette’s “You Learn” that she hopes her fans take from her own music. Inside Taylor Swift’s Life-Changing Year: ‘I’m Proud of the Things I’ve Withstood’ “So much was made of my personal life at such a young age, I started to feel like anything that I did that wasn’t successful, like a breakup or anything that people were making such a big deal of, [would leave] such a huge mark on me that would last forever,” she says. Miller Mobley But now as she approaches her 30th birthday on Dec. 13, Swift feels more self-assured than ever and will no longer stand for society’s double standards. Says the star: “I really love that there are advocates out there in the world being very vocal about the fact that aging is not a slow march to irrelevancy, death and decay.”