Girl on girl How pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves

In this triumphant debut, Pulitzer finalist Gilbert dissects three decades of pop culture, from the Riot Grrrl 1990s to the #Girlboss 2010s, arguing that the era's depictions of women evolved in ways that ended up warping their self-esteem. Analyzing a head-spinning array of cultural artifacts--from high art to gossip columns--she dredges up long-forgotten relics, among them the reality TV show "Are You Hot?" in which "members of the public stripped in order to be assessed by a panel of judges," and "The Swan," in which contestants were given "dozens" of cosmetic surgeries. Gilbert identifies a series of interlocking cultural shifts over this period that, in her telling, amounted to a subtle backlash against feminism. Examples include the late-'90s replacement of "angry and abrasive and thrillingly powerful" women musicians, like Tori Amos and Sinéad O'Connor, with more childlike or even underage stars like Britney Spears. Gilbert traces the origins of this drift to the objectifying influence of pornography, which, as it rapidly proliferated in online spaces, began to infect pop culture with a degrading attitude toward women. She also makes a convincing case that the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade was the long tail of this backlash. It's a tour de force of cultural criticism. (Apr.)

How the last three decades of movies, music, and media have written the story for women. In a carefully buttressed and sharply written analysis that takes into account a dizzying number of cultural products and characters, Gilbert tries to understand how we got where we are today, a moment when the undeniable increase in women's power meets the repeal ofRoe v. Wade and the reelection of Donald Trump. If we can see what went wrong, theAtlantic staff writer says, perhaps "we can conceive of a more powerful way forward." As she considers topics ranging from the Spice Girls to Nora Ephron to Paris and Perez Hilton, fromAmerican Pie toAwkward Black Girl, from Sheryl Sandberg to Sheila Heti to Kim Kardashian, she sees that "so much of what I was trying to figure out kept coming back to porn." Insights of that sort come fast and bright, big and small: "I've always wondered why people diminish girlhood as somehow cosseted or twee, when the reality of coming-of-age as a young woman is so raw, filled with emotional violence and literal blood." "Movies in the aughts [the decade ofShallow Hal andKnocked Up]hated women." "Why is male honesty in art seen as brave while female honesty is so repellent?" The heroes of her account are sometimes unexpected, Taylor Swift and Instagram among them. Her exploration of torture porn and its connection to Abu Ghraib is not for the fainthearted. (If you've never heard of a movie calledHostel, consider yourself lucky.) Truly, Gilbert deserves a medal--not only for her observations and conclusions, but for navigating the sludge she had to wade through to get there. Essential cultural criticism. But brace yourself--it ain't pretty. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.