Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves

In this incisive and witty critique of pop culture in the aughts, Gilbert (Pulitzer Prize finalist and staff writer at The Atlantic) deconstructs the phenomenon of postfeminism by examining cultural trends across film, music, reality television, and more. From the Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s to the 2024 presidential election, the book traces the pernicious cultural shift in the ideals of womanhood. Keen analyses of 2000s touchstones, such as Spice Girls mania, the public evisceration of Britney Spears, and the proliferation of teen sex comedies, coalesce into a scathing indictment of the porn industry. Thoroughly researched and superbly written, Gilbert’s book makes a convincing case for how the mainstream infiltration of pornography normalized the hyper-sexualization and infantilization of women. The work’s chronological organization allows the reader to clearly visualize historical trends and understand the connections between culture and women’s agency. This sharp and entertaining delve into the grim side of 2000s nostalgia will appeal to many Millennial readers and is an important work that contextualizes the systemic misogyny that remains pervasive to this day.