Big Ideas Girl on Girl — How pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves with The Atlantic's Sophie Gilbert
Mar 18, 2026
Sophie Gilbert, award-winning culture critic at The Atlantic and author of Girl on Girl, examines how 1990s–2000s pop culture shaped millennial women. She explores commodified Girl Power, reality TV spectacle, porn’s cultural influence, cosmetic makeover culture, and how internalized misogyny is learned and can be unlearned. Short, urgent, and reflective.
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Backlash Replaced Powerful Women With Frailty
- A cultural backlash in the 2000s replaced empowered, collective female figures with younger, frailer models and teen pop stars who were easier to control.
- Sophie uses the shift from 1990s supermodels to heroin‑chic icons like Kate Moss to illustrate how power was reallocated away from women who could push back.
Porn As A Mainstream Cultural Shaper
- Porn became a dominant visual culture force in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, increasing consumption tenfold from VHS to mid‑1990s and exploding again with the internet.
- Gilbert argues that scale made porn a shaping influence on norms about sex, pleasure, and gender power dynamics.
Feminist Porn Is A Drop In The Ocean
- Ethical or women‑led porn exists but is a small fraction of what mainstream viewers encounter; platform recommendations often surface violent content first.
- Gilbert cites Pornhub recommendation patterns as evidence that most viewers see porn reinforcing male pleasure and female submission.
