Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston are over – cue everyone's sarcastic sexist remarks about the contents of her next album

Look at Ed Sheeran. Look at the Beatles. No one listened to the Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Ruby’, rolled their eyes and wondered aloud whether they would stop writing about their girlfriends soon. So why do we have such a problem with women such as Swift doing the same?

Tom Hiddleston and Taylor Swift (Getty)

It’s been reported that the unlikely power couple that brought us inspiring titles such as ‘Hiddleswift’ and equally ridiculous ‘Swiftston’ are, after three months of the most bizarre press coverage, no longer dating. Cue the headlines anticipating a break-up record from Taylor Swift with a heavy dosage of shade-throwing song titles. What will she say about the demise of her romance with Tom Hiddleston?

One tongue-in-cheek article reacting to the news suggested an entire album’s worth of song titles (think ‘You Changed the Netflix Password...to My Heart’ and other equally amusing tracks). Now, let me make one thing clear: I couldn’t care less about Taylor Swift, Tom Hiddleston, or the details of their relationship or break-up. But what I do care about is all this noise surrounding Swift after each break-up that makes it into the public eye, the noise that seems to always boil down to one long howl about her audacity to write love songs.

Women who sing about love, relationships and heartbreak are, it seems, overemotional, manipulative and generally sneaky, but men who do the same are brave. Talk about double standards. Talk about playing into medieval gender stereotypes.

Now and then I spend my Sunday afternoon listening/torturing myself to the Big Top 40 Charts, and week in, week out, I’m always struck by: a) the amount of songs explicitly concerned with love or heartbreak, b) the number of male musicians pouring their hearts out over a dubstep backtrack, and c) how downright vulgar some of these songs actually are.

Exhibit A: ‘The Man Who Can’t be Moved’ by chart-topping band The Script gives account to a man (presumably Danny O’Donoghue) waiting at the corner of a street for an ex-lover to come back to him, often while being mistaken for a homeless person. He snivels “I'm not broke - I'm just a broken-hearted man”, before explaining that he won’t be moving anytime soon. Some may say that’s brave. I say it’s just plain creepy. While we’re on the topic, if you are trying to rekindle a past romance, standing at the end of your ex-lover’s street corner and refusing to go away isn’t the way to go about it.

Exhibit B: It’s the song that brought us the lyrics “Baby I’m preying on you tonight / Hunt you down, eat you alive” from none other than American pop giants Maroon 5. The song, rather aptly titled ‘Animals’, equates sexuality with an insatiable desire to consume somebody whole. How romantic. And they say ‘Love Story’ is over-the-top.

Exhibit C: He’s a Grammy-nominated superstar who has achieved worldwide commercial and critical acclaim, but there is something seriously awry with his love song ‘Latch’ – yes, it’s your boy Disclosure. This track has some real gems, such as “If there are boundaries, I will try to knock them down”, and “Now I’ve got you in my space / I won’t let you go / Got you shackled in my embrace.” This is the kind of song that ought to be plagued with negative headlines.

We, as a chart-listening, tabloid-reading populace, love to give female musicians the “out-of-control, overemotional” tag, without truly looking at the whole picture. Even if we momentarily take questionable love songs such as those listed above out of the equation, there seems to be a discrepancy between the way we view music concerned with relationships by men and that by women. Look at Ed Sheeran. Look at the Beatles. No one listened to the Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Ruby’, rolled their eyes and wondered aloud whether they would stop writing about their girlfriends soon. So why do we have such a problem with women such as Swift doing the same?