It would have been almost impossible to miss the fact that Taylor Swift has dropped a new album. Her highly anticipated release, The Tortured Poets Department, was also accompanied by a surprise second album of bonus tracks, meaning that Swifties had 15 extra songs to plough through – and joyfully plough through them all they did. The album became Spotify’s most streamed album in a single day on its first day of release, sparked column inches from music critics and exploded on social media, trending on every platform.

That’s perhaps not a surprise. Being a fan of Taylor Swift, or even an observer on the sidelines of her panoptic pop culture presence, means being aware of the folklore attached to each album (one of her eleven original albums is even called folklore). Every word, pause and metaphor gets analysed in real time, with Swifties gleefully uncovering the 34-year-old’s so-called ‘Easter Eggs’ (little mysteries which are initially concealed from listeners until they can figure out their double meaning) via forums and social media. Scrutinising their findings is a beloved pastime of her fans. The unique thing about Taylor Swift, is that she is documenting her own life through her music so rapidly, it is almost instantaneous. Fans can predict what subject matter her new material will cover: so well documented is every aspect of her life as it happens. And so, fans were expecting TTPD to be a heartbreak album – and it is one, just not entirely in the way they were imagining it would be.

Although Swift is currently very happily, very publicly, dating NFL player Travis Kelce – and has been since last summer – the timing of her lyric writing coincided with the end of her six-year relationship with The Favourite actor Joe Alwyn in April last year, with whom she had been living in his native London for many years. At Alwyn’s request, they kept their long term relationship as far out of the public eye as any other relationship Swift has ever been in. (No ‘I heart TS’ singlet for Alwyn, for example, as the singer’s ex Tom Hiddleston once wore). And yet we saw it through her lyrics: the beginning of their romance had been documented in the Reputation album (Gorgeous is thought to be about how the spark she felt when they first met at the Met Gala in 2016), the 2019 album Lover references their happy times. But, now, the break up songs have arrived on TTPD. ITAL So long, London and loml are thought to be most specifically about Alwyn, with another song called The Black Dog – thought to be about seeing Alwyn at the Vauxhall pub of the same name after their break up (‘And so I watch as you walk into some bar called The Black Dog and pierce new holes in my heart). Alwyn has never spoken about their break up, and after the album’s release a source close to him told The Daily Mail, ‘Regardless of what [Taylor] does, he will still not respond because he has removed himself from her narrative and is very glad he did.’ His own dating life has been uneventful since his split from Swift, though he has been linked to his co-star on forthcoming film The Brutalist, Emma Laird.

Alwyn aside, the 1975 singer Matty Healy has also entered the TTPD chat with gusto. Despite the fact the pair dated for little over a month, their whirlwind affair last summer is thought to have inspired no less than four songs on TTPD, including one which details, ‘I love you, it’s ruining my life, I touched you for only a fortnight… I call you up but you won’t pick up…’. Meme-makers fell upon the idea that Alwyn had waited all year to see how their break up was interpreted by Swift, only to find himself superseded in Swift folklore by a four week fling with a man who once ate raw meat onstage (although as Grazia went to press there were rumours that Swift and Healy had actually first had sparks in 2014, something neither of them have commented on). Like Alwyn, Healy has kept schtum on any lyrics aimed at him – though unlike Alwyn he has less of a desire to keep out of the spotlight, and insiders have suggested Healy has ‘thoughts to share’ on the romance, and the songs he’s inspired.

Along with the adoration she gets from her fans for how she shares her romantic life with her fans via her lyrics, however, Swift is simultaneously criticised and mocked for it. Talk show host Ellen Degeneres once infamously beamed the faces of men Swift had been rumoured to be romantically linked with and urged her to comment on each one, as the singer blushed with anguish, Her critics love nothing more than pointing out how many celebrities she has dated in a derogatory way – as if Leonardo DiCaprio and Pete Davidson aren’t slapped on the back for the same thing. Male artists have ‘muses’ while Swift has ‘exes’, and despite being a self-made billionaire with the most Best Album Grammys of any other artist, Swift is often faced with the depressingly reductive industry joke that men should steer clear if they don’t want to be the subject of a new album.

On that note, then, is Travis Kelce worried? Insiders say not. Kelce is unique amongst Swift’s exes in that he is said to actively enjoy being in the public eye, has a thick skin and – most importantly – the pair are thought to be far more serious than anyone could have imagined when the rather unlikely couple first met. Almost a year after being introduced by a mutual friend, engagement rumours are currently doing the rounds in the US press. Sounds like a new album is being inspired as we speak…

Looking at the comments under my This Morning clip, it’s hard to ignore that a lot of them come from women. I think we all have elements of internalised misogyny that we’re unlearning, and many would do well to acknowledge that within themselves. It’s the culture we’ve grown up in, told that boys like girls who leave ‘just the right amount’ to the imagination. Opening my phone each morning, I’m still faced with an array of tabloid headlines about ‘flaunting figures’ and ‘leggy displays’, as if our bodies are objects to be displayed rather than just the vessels that carry us through life. From dress codes to get into bars to our flawed judicial systems that always seem to ask, ‘But what was she wearing?’, it’s clear that the sexualisation of women is systemic.

When my son was born, everyone told me ‘He’ll be a heartbreaker!’ When my daughter was born, it was ‘You’ll have to lock her up.’ I can’t help but think, if we’re going to lock one of the genders up, why not lock up the gender that committed 98% of sexual offences in the year ending March 2020? With incel culture on the rise and men like Andrew Tate celebrated globally, raising good men feels even more of a responsibility than raising daughters.

My message is this: we need to stop putting the onus on women, telling them that by simply existing, they attract attention. When you repeatedly tell little girls to cover up to avoid unwanted attention, you tell her that her body is shameful. That little girl grows up to believe that it’s our responsibility to not get harassed.

Women are consistently dubbed attention seekers – but maybe consider that we don’t actually want the attention that we’re given. And maybe, our bodies shouldn’t be the focus anyway. It’s a cliché, but our bodies are the least interesting thing about us – and I can promise that what we say is far more interesting.