Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves
Sophie Gilbert
Formats & Editions
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025
A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF 2025
'Essential reading' Irish Independent
'Fascinating and powerfully argued' Daily Telegraph
'A vast, engaging and brilliant historical deep dive into the relationship between pop culture, misogyny and feminism' Stylist
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Cosmetic surgeries are at an all-time high, Ozempic is bringing back 'heroin chic' and the manosphere on the rise - after four waves of feminism, what went wrong?
Despite decades of progress, modern womanhood feels more challenging than ever. Atlantic critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sophie Gilbert reveals how today's misogyny emerged from another turbulent era: the late 90s and early 2000s.
Spanning the past thirty years of pop culture - from Madonna to Taylor Swift, #GirlBoss to OnlyFans, Real Housewives to trad-wives - Girl on Girl shows how every form of media, heavily influenced by the rise of porn, has warped women's relationships with themselves and others.
We cannot move forward without fully reckoning with the ways pop culture has defined us - this book shows us how.
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'A captivating must-read for anyone who wants to understand how and why misogyny is as powerful a force as ever' KATE MANNE, author of Down Girl
'I folded down every single page' PANDORA SYKES, author of How Do We Know We're Doing It Right?
'A book that will make you think, and want to discuss' Glamour
'Blistering' New York Times
'Riveting' Vogue
'Add this book to the list of titles that urgently provide context and answers to the hell storm that is [vaguely waves around] everything going on right now' Harper's Bazaar
'Gilbert is a serious and attentive chronicler of a fraught era' Financial Times
Read MorePraise for Girl on Girl
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With panache, wit, and brilliance, Sophie Gilbert's GIRL ON GIRL offers compelling analyses of how mass culture has diluted and tainted feminism, even managing to turn women against each other and ourselves. A captivating must-read for anyone who wants to understand how and why misogyny is as powerful a force as ever.A riveting, incisive, rousing exploration of millennial culture that reveals the cyclical pattern of political movements, the insidious nature of backlash, and the importance of understanding how we got here, so that we can move forward. Sophie Gilbert is one of our most important cultural critics and I'll read everything she ever writesA carefully buttressed and sharply written analysis that takes into account a dizzying number of cultural products and characters . . . 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. - KirkusTriumphant . . . a tour de fource of cultural criticism - Publishers WeeklyLandmark feminist non-fiction - StylistA sharp, insightful analysis of how media and pop culture have shaped how women view themselves and each other - Marie ClaireGilbert unmasks the collective regression that continues to influence our views on misogyny, feminism and womanhood today - Harper's BazaarGilbert is one of my favorite writers and thinkers, particularly on the subjects of gender and womanhood-and her debut book, which dissects three decades of pop culture through a feminist lens, is sure to be one of the standouts of the year - The Millions
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