Girl On Girl: How Pop Culture Turned A Generation Of Women Against Themselves

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Cosmetic surgeries are at an all-time high, Ozempic is bringing back ‘heroin chic’ and TikTok, trad-wives are on the rise – after four waves of feminism, what went wrong?

Despite decades of progress, the gains of the feminist movement feel more fragile than ever. But as Atlantic critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sophie Gilbert points out, this is not a unique moment. Feminism felt just as fragmented in the early 2000s, when the momentum of third-wave feminists and riot grrrls was squashed by lad culture and the commodification of Girl Power.

In her new book, Girl on Girl, Sophie argues that we cannot move forward without fully reckoning with the ways pop culture has defined us. She casts her eye across pop culture of the past thirty years – from Madonna, the Spice Girls and the Kardashians, to MySpace, #GirlBoss and Real Housewives – and highlights a toxic pattern of progress and misogynistic backlash, claiming that every form of media, heavily influenced by the rise of porn, has shaped and warped women’s relationships with themselves and other women.