Book Review: From incels to trad wives, culture critic probes 21st century backlash against feminism

'Girl on Girl' examines what made the 2000s toxic for women

Author Sophie Gilbert joins Morning Joe to discuss her new book 'Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves'.

Book Review: From incels to trad wives, culture critic probes 21st century backlash against feminism

In her new book, “Girl on Girl,” Atlantic magazine critic Sophie Gilbert examines the backlash against feminism in pop culture over the past three decades.

Was the 2000s “Cool-Girl” Era Internalized Misogyny?

The early 2000s were a different time—we were different people, and culture was in a different place. Today, we see a resurgence of traditionally feminine archetypes: the glorification of the trad wife and stay-at-home moms, “girly pop” stars like Sabrina Carpenter, aesthetics like coquette and Cottagecore , and a countercultural return to soft girl living . Back then, though, these quintessentially girly expressions weren’t just unpopular, they…

Tradwives Are the Harbinger of Systemic Breakdown

Nostalgia for a bygone gender regime is more than a weird social media trend. It reflects larger system pressures — on elites facing technological disruption that might generate social unrest, and on ordinary women buckling under the weight of modern work.

Book Review: Sophie Gilbert, “Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves”

Andrea Dworkin, in my third wave feminist education, represented a reductive version of feminism. I had a snobbish attitude towards her. Her “anti-sex” and “anti-porn” radical feminist theories were unsexy and unattractive, all the things women are expected to be. At the very least, she was an unliberated figure who once publicly shamed Kathleen Hanna, de-facto leader of the Riot Grrrl Movement (and shining moment of women’s liberation in the ni…

Book Review: From incels to trad wives, culture critic probes 21st century backlash against feminism - The Morning Sun

Sophie Gilbert, a London-based staff writer for the Atlantic magazine, has taken a survey of the Anglo-American pop culture landscape, and her findings aren’t pretty. In a new book, “Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves” she concludes that after decades of social and political progress for women, the patriarchy has come roaring back in the 21st century with the new-old belief that women’s proper place is …