The criticism of Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” has been roiling from the second she dropped the single and now much-analyzed music video. There’s the argument that “LWYMMD” is just peak pettiness, what with its rehashing of old feuds with Kanye West (and his dreaded tilted stage). For some people, this vengeance is simply self-absorbed nonsense, and ill-timed at that: The country is devolving into a fiery hellscape and Swift is responding with . . . a flurry of snake emojis? This sociopolitical slam only serves to bring up another old (well, 2016, anyway) lament: that Swift, a self-anointed feminist, was one of the few major celebrities who declined to use her vast social media influence to endorse a presidential candidate (namely, not the one who was boasting about sexual assault, the same crime she just sued a man over).

But what if—stay with me—all of this backlash is just sexism in disguise? So suggested Joseph Kahn, who directed the video for “LWYMMD,” on Twitter today:

Kahn raises an interesting point. Do the Swift burns flow more freely because she’s a woman? Are male artists given the space to reinvent themselves every few years in silly ways, play the victim (oh, hi, Kanye) and not necessarily speak out on politics and social justice? Do we indeed hold Swift to a higher, unfair standard?

The answer is yes and no: We do hold Swift to a higher standard, but it’s neither unfair nor sexist. People expect more of Swift than the average musician not because she’s a woman, but because she’s not the average musician. She wasn’t just the highest paid woman in music last year, but the highest paid person in music on planet Earth. In this fractured digital music era, she still sells millions of albums, and reaches millions of people on social media. (As evidenced by the last week, a single cryptic tweet from her will send the pop culture universe into an all-out frenzy.) She is paid by some of the biggest brands in the world, like Diet Coke, to use her powers of influence on people. All of this, obviously, amounts to privilege and power. And when she chooses not to use it, her silence sounds all the more deafening. (Consider that the only other two artists in Swift’s economic stratosphere last year—Madonna and Rihanna—both made their political preferences known.)