Name: Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves
ISBN: 9780593656297

Sophie Gilbert

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

Parmin

I've always wondered why people diminish girlhood as somehow cosseted or twee, when the reality of coming-of-age as a young woman is so raw, filled with emotional violence and literal blood.

She doesn't explicitly tie this to art as a galvanizing rce. In but I will. The Romantic movement of the nineteenth cent entury, which celebrated chivalry, beauty, love, and emotion, arguably and with wisd was hap set a path for twentieth-century feminism by encouraging the perception of women as full human beings, not just commodi- ties. On the flip side, the waning of romantic comnedies in the early 2000sand the boom in movies that fetishized male bonding, fraternal quests, and juvenile misogyny-may have led to women's seeming less human and less worthy of love and respect. By extension, is it surprising that the creator of a real- ity series that treats women as interchangeable, identikit trophy brides was issued a restraining order for allegedly attacking his pregnant wife? Is it strange that a generation raised on violent, dehumanizing pornography has trouble forming meaningful has trouble forming intimate relationships and is increasingly eschewing both romantic love and sex altogether?

such an entertaining read and and argument i definitely agree with in my experience as a zillenial woman.. i do wish gilbert used a tad more academic/sociological/feminist analysis to make her case but its a FAT stack of evidence and she does disclaim in her intro that this book was a way of putting pieces together for herself so by no means meant to be a seminal work or game plan for the future. i also had just read david friend's naughty nineties before this so i was nicely informed on so many of the 90s references i wasn't around for.  enjoyed!

Sooooo many thoughts. Clearly well researched but at its core it's kinda just a laundry list of all the ways the aughts sucked for women, with very little of the promised analysis of WHY that happened (to the extent that I might read it again bc I'm like... Did I miss something? We're getting three references to aids, Two to 9/11 and a hefty dose of "idk probably porn" and leaving it at that???).

She also definitely should've done a chronology instead of grouping it around themes, mostly because some of the sections are noticeably better than others, to a frustrating degree. The one about tabloids rips, as does the one about reality TV.  But the one about girlbosses just was absolutely nothing, and the one about porn just describes a bunch of violent porn and is like "ABU GHRAIB ONLY HAPPENED BECAUSE OF PORN" but then she ALSO throws in the requisite "but I love porn porn is actually great I'm not uptight" disclaimer at the end.

I also got the distinct feeling that how much she liked something directly influenced how critical she was of it, or at the very least she really picked over what she chose to analyze deeply. Like, there's a part where she quotes Eli Roth saying Hostel was about his disgust with the iraq war and American imperialism IN THE CHAPTER WHERE SHE TALKS ABOUT ABU GHRAIB but that doesn't really fit her argument so she's just like "BUT CLEARLY HES NOT SAYING ANYTHING WITH THIS GARBAGE HE JUST LOVES VIOLENCE" which like... 👀 okay. 

Regan Martin

Sooooo many thoughts. Clearly well researched but at its core it's kinda just a laundry list of all the ways the aughts sucked for women, with very little of the promised analysis of WHY that happened (to the extent that I might read it again bc I'm like... Did I miss something? We're getting three references to aids, Two to 9/11 and a hefty dose of "idk probably porn" and leaving it at that???).

She also definitely should've done a chronology instead of grouping it around themes, mostly because some of the sections are noticeably better than others, to a frustrating degree. The one about tabloids rips, as does the one about reality TV.  But the one about girlbosses just was absolutely nothing, and the one about porn just describes a bunch of violent porn and is like "ABU GHRAIB ONLY HAPPENED BECAUSE OF PORN" but then she ALSO throws in the requisite "but I love porn porn is actually great I'm not uptight" disclaimer at the end.

I also got the distinct feeling that how much she liked something directly influenced how critical she was of it, or at the very least she really picked over what she chose to analyze deeply. Like, there's a part where she quotes Eli Roth saying Hostel was about his disgust with the iraq war and American imperialism IN THE CHAPTER WHERE SHE TALKS ABOUT ABU GHRAIB but that doesn't really fit her argument so she's just like "BUT CLEARLY HES NOT SAYING ANYTHING WITH THIS GARBAGE HE JUST LOVES VIOLENCE" which like... 👀 okay. 

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

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