In the interest of clarity, Taylor Alison Swift is my soulmate. 

I love her about the same amount that I love my husband. I know every word to every song and I once realised that 40% of the music on my phone is Taylor. Obviously I think Look What You Made me Do is amazing.

Even if I weren’t a hardwired Swifty, I’d be a big fan, because it’s an amazing song and also because it appeals to the deep pettiness in my soul.

But I’m not here to talk about the song (well, maybe a little bit, seriously guys it a couple more listens, it’s a massive grower). I’m here to talk about how much better we need to be when we talk about Taylor Swift.

Lots of people don’t like her. That’s fine. She’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But the way we talk about her? Dear God it says a lot about the way in which we treat women.

Let’s take an example. Taylor has been roasted from all sides over her political views and her commercial feminism because when she was 15 years old her songs didn’t exactly stand up to Germaine Greer levels of feminist scrutiny.

Last year Kanye West publicly stated that he supported Donald Trump and WENT TO MEET HIM. We all just acted like that was fine.

Kanye West can compare himself to actual Christ and tell people that he’s the greatest living artist of all time, and that’s apparently endearing. Yet female artists are expected remain modest and self effacing, otherwise they’re ‘divas’.

For almost a decade, people have criticized Taylor for writing songs about things that have happened in her life. She’s a serial dater, she’s a crazy ex-girlfriend, she’s a snake.

When Ernest Hemingway based stories on people he had actually known, no one called him crazy. No-one said that he should keep his private life private.

Why? Probably because he’s an old white man who wrote books.

Taylor has committed the crime of being an exciting, beautiful young woman. Her punishment is to have every statement, song, outfit and poor judgement held up for international scrutiny.

Swift had a voice. You might not like what she does with it. You might think it’s petty or childish to use her songs to address ongoing feuds. That’s fine.

What’s not fine is to act as if a woman using her life to create art is a problem. It’s what great artists have been doing for generations and without creative people taking inspiration from their experiences we would have a fallow cultural landscape.

Taylor Swift was embroiled in a narrative that damaged her reputation. The rights and wrongs of that narrative have been debated to death, but suffice to say, the #KimEndedTaylorParty must have been a pretty dark time.

Lesser mortals would have been defeated by the Kim and Kanye incident. But not Taylor. Rather than allowing it to do permanent scar her brand, she reinvented herself.

You called her a snake? That’s fine. Maybe she is a snake. Maybe that’s okay. Even the album title – Reputation – gives a middle finger up to the nickname that Kim gave her.

Every snake emoji that people posted to mock her has become free advertising.

You don’t need to like Taylor to be able to respect the strength of branding and reinvention that her new album signifies.

Like it or not, Taylor Swift is a role model to young women all over the world. And the message that she is sending with Reputation is that even if you’ve messed up, even if you’ve been internationally humiliated, you can come back.

There is no incident embarrassing enough that your voice should be silenced, there is nothing too big to come back from. Which is exactly the kind of message that I would want any daughters I might have to take to heart.

People have been trying to shut Taylor up for years. Slut shaming, jokes at her expense and online bullying: she’s used it all as petrol for success, and what’s more she’s turned it in to profit. She really did build a castle out of all the rocks you threw at her.