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

Sophie White: I was locked into toxic methods to be thin until a year of counting out raspberries made me see how bad things had become

As someone who was born in 1985, I am blessed to have escaped social media during my teenage years. From the tradwives to the fitfluencers to the clean-girl aesthetic, at every hand’s turn there’s a reminder of how far short of expectations we women are falling. Of course, my generation’s analogue adolescence free from digital feeds wasn’t some utopia of female freedom and empowerment. I grew up in the dystopian age of heroin chic, up-skirt pap …

'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.

How '00s pop culture made women hate themselves (and each other)

From heroin chic to extreme porn gone mainstream, pop culture has turned women against themselves, writes Sophie Gilbert in her book Girl on Girl. Read more...