Girl on Girl. How Pop Culture Turned A Generation Against Themselves - a review.

Cover Design - Chris Allen Published by Penguin Press (2025)

When I first saw this book on a Good Reads List I was incredibly excited and promptly claimed my spot on my local library's wait list, and do I have some thoughts! I grew up in the post-feminist era of the late 90s and early 2000s, although can we really say we are in a post-feminist era given the current administration? While this book main a lot of valid and profound points about how media portrayals of women led to the way men ended up treating the women in their lives. Spoiler alert - the main point is that we are accessories, props used to push the envelope on what girl power and female empowerment meant.

Where were the actual points about girl on girl hatred? The points of most girls experiencing disdain and disgust from our own female relatives which then lead us to buying into performing for the male gaze? We get a long list of examples of misogynistic media, but absolutely nothing about how this actually affected the young women absorbing it and how it formed the way we women tended to interact with other women and the men of our lives. A huge failing on the author's part - the omission of how many white women voted for Trump in both elections. Cause no one hates women more than other women.

I rated this book two stars, while it did lead to some good conversations and got me thinking. It's missing a lot of what it meant to live in this era, I would have liked more discussion and points on how WOC (Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Indigious women were not mentioned at all) were protrayed in pop culture.