There is a constantly repeated allegation that Taylor Swift is a whinging, spoilt brat who can’t get a boyfriend and uses her music as an opportunity to vent. But a much more credible objection to Swift is the idea that her love songs (which, let’s face it, constitute the overwhelming majority of her oeuvre) have their root in an outdated, patriarchal and damaging version of romance.

At first glance, Swift’s lyrics do seem to carry us back to a 1950s world in which courtship is governed by strict gender boundaries. The boys almost invariably drive the cars - think Tim McGraw, Picture to Burn, Our Song, Fearless, Style - while the female singer sits passively in the passenger seat, attractive but, crucially, too innocent or too cripplingly insecure to realise it. This line from All Too Well, for instance, is particularly shudder-inducing: “You almost ran the red, cos you were lookin’ over me”. Even in the songs blaming her exes for the deterioration of their relationship, Swift is placing them, figuratively, in the driving seat: entire responsibility seems to imply entire control.

Her first hit, Love Story, by basing itself on the story of Romeo and Juliet, is not exactly equipping itself with the best chance at becoming a feminist anthem. The two possible outcomes of this song are represented by male figures - the father and the boyfriend - who are locked in a tug of war over the young girl’s heart. The song’s “Juliet” figure assumes autonomy to the extent of resisting her father’s “tryin’ to tell me how to feel”, but still seems, practically speaking, immobilised by his opposition, and the happy ending is only assured when “Romeo” secures the older man’s approval. “I talked to your Dad, go pick out a white dress.”

 It’s a pattern which, with few exceptions, is played out all across her first three studio albums. In Red, the girl gets behind the wheel of the Maserati only to realise she’s driving it “down a dead-end street”. Yet there’s a rare moment in Breathe in which taking control of the car also suggests taking control of – and responsibility for – the relationship. “Every little bump in the road I tried to swerve,” she sings, her soft voice unusually prominent over a gentle guitar backing. And then she says the words that critics paint her as being incapable of saying: “I’m sorry.”

It would be naive and anachronistic to cite Breathe as some sort of triumphant feminist turning point in the development of Swift’s lyrics. It was recorded in 2008, and we do not know how much of its atypicality to attribute to Colbie Caillat as co-writer. It is important, however, because it shows us what Swift’s love songs have the potential to be: gentle, but not submissive; human, but not regimented by gender stereotypes.

Her most recent album, 1989, shows signs of moving towards that model. Blank Space and Wildest Dreams are both provocative statements of female sexual agency, while Welcome To New York becomes Swift’s first song to overtly celebrate homosexual love: “You can want who you want / Boys and boys and girls and girls”. But perhaps the most obviously emancipated track is I Know Places, in which Swift reclaims control of her love life from the grasp of the media. Swift’s first four albums may be full of songs about boys, but it is only in 1989 that the girl who writes about these boys comes fully into view.

So, yes. We probably should be a bit worried about the gender stereotypes and patriarchal models of romance enshrined in Swift’s early music. These are concepts fed to young people, through a network of computers, wires, and tinny phone speakers, on a daily basis. And FeministTaylorSwift is right to call them out on their inherent anti-Feminism.

I just think that, given a few more years, the real Taylor Swift will be putting her out of a job.