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suchsweetsorrow89 's review for:
informative
reflective
fast-paced
I have been looking forward to reading this book all summer, and I am very glad that I read it. Often times, I think there's this new instinctive response to anyone who attempts to critique the current state of feminism and modern womanhood: "It's not as bad as it was 20 years ago." This response, I feel, comes from the undeniable realities that women are now at the forefront of politics, business, economics, and pop culture more than ever before. This book, however, challenges that by- rather than looking at the faces of the women- looking at the stories they tell of themselves and of the people who surround them. Yes, we have women pop-cultural stars more than ever, with Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, and *sigh* Addison Rae (I don't listen to her music, at all, but for some reason throughout this read her picture kept coming to my mind) on stage and in commercials, one can't help but notice how pornography and sex is beginning to tie them all together- especially as the messages of politics and the legal advancement of women in music is now seemingly swapped out for empty messages of "bark back at the catcaller" or "seek pleasure in heterosexual sex" (a message that was once but is no longer subversive) as the end-all-be-all of feminism in the modern day. What Gilbert does here is digestibly illustrates how we have seen this exact phenomenon before- in the 90s when Riot Grrrl was swapped out for the hyperfeminine fluff of the Spice Girls. Moreso, she details an intellectual history of how pop culture, as she so clearly lays it out in the title, turned women against themselves. What was so rich about this book to me was how she provides such sharp analyses on the media of the aughts, providing a compelling thesis of how we have ended up where we are today. I saw some critiques of the book in other Storygraph comments, and I agree with them (lack of diversity, not ending up with a larger connection to democracy), but I also think that working within the field she works in inherently contains these issues. This book is not by any means the book that will fix every single issue, but for the average person who is interested in feminism and pop culture (such as myself), there's so much to learn from this text. For the scholar (which I aspire to be), I'd like to think of this book as an opportunity to have larger conversations in community with others on these gaps.
At the very least, this book now inspires me to rewatch all of the movies and the TV shows of the 2000s through a new lens, which is exciting to me since that has always been a hobby of mine! I strongly recommend this book. Keep in mind that this book is all about sex and pornography, and she uses that from the radical feminist tradition as her guiding pillar- if you are someone who is uncomfortable with that, or other discussions on sexual content and assualt, be wary. As a political theorist, though, all I will say is this: I wish she had spoken a bit more about the possibilities of love and what feminism can do for democracy. But again, this is a book on pop culture, one of the visible aspects of society where democracy and politics was never quite meant to fit in.
At the very least, this book now inspires me to rewatch all of the movies and the TV shows of the 2000s through a new lens, which is exciting to me since that has always been a hobby of mine! I strongly recommend this book. Keep in mind that this book is all about sex and pornography, and she uses that from the radical feminist tradition as her guiding pillar- if you are someone who is uncomfortable with that, or other discussions on sexual content and assualt, be wary. As a political theorist, though, all I will say is this: I wish she had spoken a bit more about the possibilities of love and what feminism can do for democracy. But again, this is a book on pop culture, one of the visible aspects of society where democracy and politics was never quite meant to fit in.