Bookwild - The History of Misogyny in Pop Culture: Our Thoughts on Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

This week, Elizabeth Rose Quinn and I discuss revelations we had while reading Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Each Other by Sophie Gilbert. Listen to hear about: How Sophie Gilbert's Girl on Girl traces a throughline from the 1990s to today, revealing how pop culture, celebrity media, and entertainment industries shaped modern misogyny and women's relationships with each other. A discussion of the "post-privacy era," from Pamela Anderson's stolen sex tape to social media, influencer culture, and the normalization of treating women's lives and bodies as public property. Why movements that begin as authentic expressions of female empowerment—like Riot Grrrl and "girl power"—often get repackaged, commercialized, and stripped of their original political meaning. An exploration of reality TV, celebrity culture, diet culture, and the male gaze—and how they continue to influence the way women are expected to look, behave, and present themselves. Misogyny as a cultural system: why women are often disbelieved, how abuse tactics show up in institutions and media, and what happens when we stop viewing these incidents as isolated events and start seeing the larger pattern.   Check Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mba 

Today I'm with Elizabeth Rose Quinn, who you know from her books that she's been on to talk about. Payback and why I cannot think of the other one. Follow me. It has been a month. But today we're going to talk about a book by Sophie Gilbert, who if you're a podcast listener, you have heard me think about this off and on. And she has a beautiful copy. Mine is behind me. I forgot to grab it. But if you're watching, you can see her beautiful Vina White presentation. So yeah, I got obsessed with this last year, Elizabeth read it recently, and there's so much to talk about. So I'm excited that you're here.

Oh, man, I am so excited. I first heard this book. I heard Sophie Gilbert talking to Anne Helen Peterson on her podcast Culture Study. And then went to my local bookstore to buy the book and they said, we don't have it. We'll order it for you. And then I didn't understand. They didn't understand what I was asking. I was like just a hard copy.

And they put me on the pre-order for the paperback. So hence the way, not because of a lack of excitement. So I am so, I was so thrilled when they call your book came in. So that's the best feeling. I can't wait. I'm like. I think I put on Instagram or something that like if I tried to highlight the important parts of this book, it's like there's no point. Like every sentence is all of it. Every last bit. It's crazy.

It's so good. It's so good. Maybe we should read like a little how pop culture turned a generation of women against each other. And what happened to feminism in the 21st century? This question feels increasingly urgent in a moment of culture. and legislative backlash when widespread uncertainty about the movement's power, focus, and currency threatens decades of progress. It goes on, but it's just, I loved the, just like, width, breadth and depth that Ms. Gilbert went into on this because even though I'm sure every chapter could be four times as long as it is. it didn't. Yeah. It's like can each chapter now be its own book? Yeah. I didn't feel like I was ever getting like a cursory overview. There was still like lots of examples, lots of tracking. And I mean, what a spectacular book that I feel like I'm going to be turning back to forever.

Me too. Because it's, it's themes that, I mean, some of them are ones that have come up in your writing as well. And then for me, it's themes that, like, I'm, I gravitate toward in fiction and nonfiction. So, like, I keep thinking of it. I have one other friend who read it. Her name's McKinsey. And to this day, we'll still be like, it's like that spot and girl, long girl, because we happen to read it at the same time last year. It has some staying power. It's, it's really good. Like, mad respect. I felt like even after I had finished the book, I kept carrying it around. So I'm, you know, synonymous to my kids and be talking to another mom.

And I just kind of be like, have you read this book? Yes. I finished it. Have you read it? It got maybe a little culty, but I stand by that. Yeah, I mean, book evangelism is fun. It's only evangelism, I believe in. It's the only one that participated anymore.

That is. It's like, definitely that. My dog, of course, I was like, like, what is we? a lot. It's okay. Mine just got back home, so. Yeah, I thought it was, there's so many fascinating things. Like, it's a little bit into the book, but one of the

things that stood out is she works up to the point where Pamela Anderson's sex tapes are leaked. And she talks about that being like the turning point of, like, or that being the end of the privacy era

and how kind of everything after that was what is considered post-privacy era because cameras at that time had just gotten small enough that they could be kind of portable uh you could access it and get it into like mass media very quickly now obviously we're to the point where everyone's holding a phone in their hand so it's like you can be caught doing stuff or even not doing stuff just like an angle that makes it seem like you're doing stuff so that was one of the things that stood out to me it I think that's more like 20-ish percent into the book. But like that seems out to me about the book in general that like that made such a big

difference because it led to us talking so much more about each other and especially about women and women's bodies. So that's like one of the things that I always think of when I think of this one. I mean, what I think is amazing about that too is I think there's. still so many ways that digital, I don't want to say it's like digital etiquette versus privacy. Yeah. Those things still feel very in flux. But I personally find the influxness a construction because people don't want

clarity around it because he had clarity around it, then exploitation has to stop. Yeah, it's kind of the same thing as AI. Yeah, we've made it a complicated issue, but there's nothing complicated about it. People should have, you should have to get people's consent before, like, releasing their images on the internet. And if you don't have express consent to, like, own digital photos, own digital video, then you have, right? And if like the copyright laws are so strong and so straightforward when it comes to like spider man yeah why is an imaginary character who's been played by a bunch of different actors in a whole bunch of different forms why does that idea property protection have more protection and it's because it's a revenue center right yeah

but like why does an idea have more protection than a human person and I think about the Pamela Anderson of it all and her tape being stolen. I think about the fact, I mean, I watched her documentary, which was excellent. And I was talking about part of why she didn't continue with the lawsuit wasn't because she thought she would lose. It was because I believe she'd already had a miscarriage during the trial. If I remember correctly. And was pregnant again and didn't want to lose another baby. And so decided to add.

And so it's like, but the nuance of that. is totally flattened because she wore a very small red bathing suit and she was in Playboy and therefore like now she's public property right I think we just have a right to all of it yeah like they stop being so i found that to be fascinating yeah because i think there's this way that we hold up one person as an isolated incident. And I think what it's like, you know, Pamela Anderson is not the same thing as Paris Hilton

and their tapes getting released. And that's not the same thing as Jennifer Lawrence's photos getting released. And that's not the same thing as, you know, Kim K. Right. But I think it's part of the construction of society that we want all of the those to be isolated incidences. And what I think Gilbert does so well in her book is she says the erosion of women as people who have power started so early that by the time it happened to Pamela Anderson, we had

been conditioned not to care. And then it's not an isolated incidence. All those instances are the exact same. And if we look at them as a trend, then we have to deal with the trend. But if we insist they're isolated in, then we can say, that was just a one-off. She should have had a better safe, right? And I think that is a really interesting way that we kind of flip-flop between women as individuals when it suits us to silo them. And then women is like a flat block when we don't want to listen to an individual woman's experience.

Right. Yeah. I agree. It's frustrating. It's frustrating. Okay, so I have something fun, though. Yeah, go for it. Even though that was a bummer.

I messaged Ms. Sovi Gilbert and said, we are going to be talking about your book. Is there anything that you would like us to talk about? Anything you feel like hasn't been focused on? And she said, first of all, she can't wait to listen, which I was like, oh, my God, this is like, she wants to listens to your demo. because the thing I'm always excited about is people bringing their own experiences to the book

and seeing how that makes the history new again. So what in this book made history feel new to you? So there is a chapter where she talks about the music industry. There might be multiple chapters. But it was another thing where when you were talking about how we, appreciate how she went very wide. It's also very intersectional. Like she did cover race as well, which really has a lot to do with how especially non-white women navigate the world. But in that, she kind of talks about how, wow, there's so much. She talks about how like NWA

did really well, but very political message. And the music industry was kind of like, wait a second, we don't want things to be going that direction. Like music should be easily digestible, blah, blah, blah, not politically activating. And so then within the music industry, then there is more of this push for rappers, especially, since we're talking about kind of like NWA adjacent, to talk down about women, that like talking about women objectifying them, kind of demeaning them like bitches and hoes, like chicken chicken heads are brought up as well um it was like a push toward like this is what we will buy in the music industry and then that was actually where rap kind of got this very like

a very like predatory male gaze kind of like became a big part of it and um I remember when I was listening to that part she was talking about how sometimes then women you could interpret it because it's so it's so tricky with feminism or womanism or just you know caring about yourself it's really hard to tell if you're like oh but this is this is kind of empowering because like he wants me so bad and my body's so wonderful and this makes me feel like empowered and like I actually have power in this situation versus like maybe they're just demeaning you and telling you that's all that's like your value and made me think of I have kind of like a unique version of that where as anyone who has listened knows I had I was like very sheltered from like

years one to 18 so we did not consume pop culture it was all it was all basically James Dobson it was all focused on the family Christian stuff so I got to college and started listening to rap and I had that happen where I'm like oh This is like a song I want to, I want to listen to while I'm running because like it is empowering that like that my body could be this way. And so I was even listening to and I think we all still will sometimes listen to songs like that which then gets into like conscious consumption essentially of media. But when she was breaking down how that happens how in some ways women could be like, oh, this makes me feel good about myself though. At the same time it's like does it really or is there like a version of you being confident in your body? that isn't like said this way. So that was like one of the big moments for me where that happened. Yeah. I mean,

I think the idea of hip hop starting as an art form that was really about, in a lot of ways, especially with NWA and it was about pushing back against white power systems. Yes. You know, the police effectively. Particularly. Particularly. Shout out to L.A.

PD. And them saying, well, the wealth that you want to access is in, you know, cahoots is aligned with those white power systems. So if you want to make the money, you have to find a different target because this music kind of as was designed at the time was like was antagonistic, right? Like we are antagonizing the power structures. We're pushing back because the. power structures. Well, we can't push it back against those anymore. What is what is a target that

everyone will allow us. Yes. And I also found that incredibly interesting. And the way that it also, yeah, really intersects with yeah, massage noir, right? Like yes. They were talking specifically about black women. And so just like the intensity of that shift. Yeah. And I think like when she frames it though, after also saying we start with riot girl. Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. And then that girl power getting repackaged into the spice girls. That was so good the way she broke that down. I mean, that was like masterful. It was like watching a flower bloom or a ship get built.

I found all of that to be just so deft in terms of like the through line that she finds. It's so clear once she starts following it that I almost felt like in some ways I could predict where she was going. not because it's predictable, but because I was like, oh my gosh, it's so clear. You have women who have power. You take those phrases. You make them into something that's incredibly male-centered. And then you have like women become props. Yes.

And then props don't get to have agency and props don't get to have privacy. And now suddenly you're shifting into like the way that. like porn getting pulled into pop culture. And I kind of realizing when I was reading this, one of the things I hadn't really known coming up, you know, I was born in 1982. So like I'm, you know, in the 2000s college, but like in the 90s when like the porn industry started kind of being so front and center, I had kind of, it hadn't really occurred to me that porn and porn stars were not always so sympathetico with pop culture.

I did not realize there was such a bifurcation until that moment where they melded. And they melded when I was like coming of age. And so realizing in this book like this objectification of women and then pulling in the porn industry, like these things, it's like an eros burrows, like the snake is eating its tail, right? Like it's not because we brought in porn actresses. We objectified women or we objectified women and we brought. It was both. Yeah, all of it together.

male centering in a different way than I think had been present before because the objectification was so intense and so overt. Yeah. Yeah. And I think part of what makes it that you can start to maybe predict in some of the chapters is that it is capitalism. Everything we've talked about so far is being driven by like business. decisions instead of like people-centered decisions because i remember in that chapter basically she talks about how riot girl was like act was an authentic like critiquing systems yeah and like actually standing up for other women and then but someone put an ad out basically for hot girls who could dance to make spice girls because they saw this quote unquote trend of riot girls doing well

and so it's like oh how can we it's also reminding me of like with the Barbie movie and then all of of Hollywood was like oh my god we need more movies with figure from from toys that's like the secret like it's going to work and then coincidentally as we're uh recording this the um he-man movie is not doing well just because they were like oh let's do toys like it has like a at least when it came out, it had like a 35% on rotten tomatoes, just not doing well. And so it reminds me of that mentality where like something can happen authentically like Riot Girl. And then you tend to see your like stereotypical sea level guys in Hollywood or L.A. or Nashville

whatever since it's like this part is music where they're like, oh, that's working really well. I'm going to formulate that. And it's like, it doesn't, it ends up not being the same thing because it's not authentic if you're formulating it to make money. I mean, these are the same people who are telling us AI is going to make movies. Yeah. And there is one of theaters right now, apparently. Well, it's like you don't under, you saw the Barbie movie and thought it was about a doll. And that's why it was successful.

Yes. Like, there's a reason why you're not a creative. Yes, exactly. When you're given a message on a silver platter, you are like, this. platter is delicious and you're like, no, you eat the floor on top, you ding dong. Yes. And so the same people who are like, AI can do it. And it's like, you can't even do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And well, my other thing is like, so I, AI is obviously so complicated. And I think we've used like visual effects and stuff in movies forever. And I can see situations where that will be helpful. And not maybe not harmful to the creative process. But it can't think of anything.

new because it purely exists on things already in existence is what I think a lot of people are forgetting. So like it's not going to make anything super revolutionary necessarily. No, it's not. But related, I'm going to try to keep this shortish, but I got to see Rashid Newsom last, last night. And he's written, my government means to kill me. And then his book that just came out is there's only one sin in Hollywood. And it's the story of a black, gay, extremely famous man in Hollywood in the 1950s, who's closeted for sure. And so you can imagine the themes that he's touching on there. But he also, before he started writing novels, he has been in writers' rooms, which I know you have as well.

But he helped produce The Shy Shooter. There's another one I'm forgetting. And also Bel Air. And he, someone asked like about, what writing for, like the differences in writing for TV versus a novel. And he essentially said he made sure he made his money before he went to write his novels because he wanted to write his novels the way he wanted to write them. And he said like when he was working on Bel Air, he got there. And he was like, he was like, the show was a mess. And we were like, how are we going

to make this work? And so he likes to just sit and ask himself like, what is the show about? Like, what is it about and like what what is each character going to be grappling with long term and so he got to the point where he was like oh well this is a show about the different ways that this black family chooses to navigate a system built not just not for them but also pretty specifically against them and so then he was saying like so with will it's about like uh uh like being cool and like leaning into your blackness essentially. And then he's even talking about like assimilation is what one of the other characters is doing to try to kind of get by. And like fading to the dark, fading into the darkness is what another like just don't pay attention to me is what another person is doing. And he said when

he was in the writer's room and he said that they were all like, wow, you're right. That is what it's about. And he was like, you want to know what we sold the studio the show is about? We said, this is a show with some of your favorite characters reimagined. He's like, you don't tell the studio that part or it's not going to get made. And I thought that was, it's so similar to this discussion that we're having now because it was the same thing. Like it was him realizing, because he's been there in the industry for so long, too. Like the formula and not stepping on people's toes is what it's going to get money in the industries like that. Yeah. I mean, I think there's so many ways that businesses and corporations kind of

eating creative endeavors is where creativity goes to die. I know. And I think one of the things I found really interesting about this book also was the way that she really, you know, stayed very focused on like the misogyny of these cultural aspects. But how often it was also like, we've fed you this thing. So in little doses. so we like it and now we're going to give it to you on a big scale

and then we're going to point to that and go and this is why we're only doing this, right? Right. And so like one of the things that I remember very keenly was like and this is not a quality thing.

This is a preference thing. I don't enjoy Adam Sailor movies. That's not good. Yeah. I just, they are not funny to me and there are plenty of things that I do. that I'm sure Adam Sandler would also think are not funny.

This is like, I cannot stress how much this is just like, this is a preference. I know. You need to be okay with that. Yeah, but to have that preference then was basically shorthand for saying, I'm a bitch, I'm a killjoy, I'm no fun. Yeah. And the effort that I remember so many of my friends going through to like the things, things that were effectively like movies about men acting like children.

Right. And it's like, well, all the women in those movies are nags or bitches or nothing. Yeah. Nothing. And you're looking at it watching, if I don't like this movie, then I'm the antagonist in the movie, which is like the mean wife. Yes. So I need to be like one of the guys. is the best option but often it was like can't you just be a Nadia and be like a silent sex toy

with my whole it was just so the pressure to want to like those things and what it said about you if you didn't and the idea that you could have a preference that said I just don't think those things are funny right was unimaginable um and how so much was like about I think about how like there were so many things that like I liked then that were not cool in a male-centered world to like but that continue to be good now. And so I think about like my perfect example for me is like when title came out with Fiona Apple like I wore that CD out. Yeah.

And she is now like lauded as like one of the best musicians, right? like so creative so every album is like more exciting than last and now like the cultural kind of apparatus has come around to liking her it's cool to like her now but back and I'm like but she's the same right I know and so to kind of feel like the longevity of the things that we liked

when we were young I'd hear it yeah whereas a lot of comedies people watch them now and are like this could not get made today this makes me feel uncomfortable that scene was rape how did nobody talk about that and like that's what like john hughes movies right yes but at the time to not like those things was like a scarlet letter but like the longevity bears out that like Fiona apple is still good and like that scene in 16 candles is rape like yes yes and so i think that's interesting right that like you it starts to almost feel like that feminist lens was not a killjoy, but it was kind of a Cassandra,

right? Like what's longevity good and you don't want to hear it? And so now we all have to pretend that this other thing's okay. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. It's there's so many examples of that that I'm now even thinking about. Even with I just finished Lena Dunham's memoir and it is fantastic. And I know even to this day, she's still divisive. So it's not like we've even completely come around. But she's someone who is always like, it's like, yes, she's brilliant. She's so young. She's writing this, this, like, major hit for HBO when she's like 22 years old. Then all of a sudden it's like, oh, she didn't do feminism right. And she must be exactly like her character. And she's so self-centered. She's terrible. And then it's like that for a little while. And then like the book comes out. And then she's been the press tour and people are like wow she has such insightful things to say and blah blah blah blah and then and then like after it's been out for a little while you're seeing people again that are like I don't know how many memoirs anyone should have before they're 40 but I don't think it should be too and you're like oh my god like come on guys I listened to two of her interviews I listened to her

with Amy Fuller yes me too and I also listened to her on reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky game. Yes. And both of those interviews were great for like, you know, the two perspectives of those podcasts have. But I, there was one in particular. I think it was on good hang where Alina said, you know, people are watching this show and they're thinking like, I can't, this is so stupid. There's no stakes. Like, how could they ever like fucking care about themselves this much? This is so uninteresting. This is so boring. Like, and then another one was like, this is incredible. It's It's high art, like if you don't get the satire. And Lena's response to that was like, I didn't like either of those.

Why can't it be both? Like when you're 22, everything is that important. And you also know you're close, but you like kind of can't help it. Yeah. And she's like, but no one could imagine that we could be operating in both of those gears. So people were in one or the other and then hated us for like not doing it right or not being like whatever it was. Right.

And I felt it to be such an astute way of summarizing. Like I lived in New York from 2000 to 2003. Oh, yeah. And so when girls came out, I think it was 2008, it came out. It was like, I couldn't watch it almost. Not because anything was. It was like so close. It was like too close where I was like, I feel embarrassed.

Yes, it's also a cringe show. Like that is a big part of it. Like, I feel embarrassed for these characters. Yes. I feel embarrassed for myself who was, like, very close. Like, all of those things, right? And that was such a nuanced perspective that people just wanted to, like, flatten and kick out of it. And I just, you know, now that, like, Gen Z is, like, watching it for the first time,

they're like, this show's really good and it's actually really funny. And it's like, yeah. Yes. Yes. It was. I saw one day, too. I saw two. to everything you just said i can't remember which it was some it was an article from some online

newspaper but um they were saying like gen z gets to appreciate girls with the time distance that like allows them to be like oh my gosh she was so she was being so witty about the early 2000s and so like the time that has passed makes it easier for some people to watch it but I agree it's like I did not I did not live in New York um but I've never thought I've any show with 20 somethings where people are like they're so naive or they're so self-involved or oh they don't understand the world yet I'm like yes that is correct like that is being in your 20s but also like okay so page 207 about girls inevitably there was backlash.

The joyful reclaiming of girls by some women as a cultural totem by us for us led to valid pushback by women who didn't see themselves represented on the show. The new profilation of voices online also meant that there was an unprecedented level of scrutiny directed at every single cultural product. And then this is a quote, because it was Dunham's fate to arrive on the cultural scene, both grubby and unglomerous, yet somehow already popular, she emerged in some sense pre-hated. Megan Downe wrote that.

And so I just think about like this idea too of like the universe of the internet for women and like gamer all that. Like this way that misogyny seems to find new, like whatever is the newest and least regulated arena for hate. Yes. and just go there and just woohoo and yeah like a chat room in 2008 you know 2010 like just brutal like Twitter campaigns and hashtags and like if high school never ended like what if high school like became a saw movie like it was just so gnarly but like what was the one version that everybody could get on board with. It was always like a

just a K-train and even more so if it was a woman of color, if it was a black woman, if it was a woman who was fat, I mean like, God fucking for me. Yeah, totally. Like she references the Jessica Simpson photo that I think all of us

can think of when everyone was like Jessica Simpson is fat. And it was crazy. That was another time where history was a little different for me is I remembered like, oh yeah, she did gain a bunch of weight. I pulled it up. And I'm like, she is gorgeous. She's gorgeous in the, like, if you grew up in the 90s, 2000s, like, she's wearing like high-wasted jeans, like, hourglass figure. Like, just absolutely stunning. And I remember at the time thinking, though, oh, wow, she's really put on weight. Like,

even though I didn't hate her, but in that time period, I'd been conditioned enough that I was like, wow, she got really big. Oh, man. Okay, well, let's, the thing that I'm really stewing on myself. Yeah. This book excellently, you know, lays out. The fashion of the aughts that effectively was, we've gone from 90s heroin chic to full ED culture.

The fashion literally does not function on your. body. No. Unless you have disordered eating. Correct. And now we do that. It's a shit show. It's terrible. We watch. We both

vilify women for having the temerity to be a size four size six, God forbid. I mean like the whole double Prado when she's like, I'm a four now. Yep. That that is a whole thing. Mm-hmm. That then we

kind of deconstruct and we have a body positivity moment right we have writers who are you know like uh, Aubrey Gordon Audrey Gordon, uh, Lindy West like women reclaiming their bodies reclaims fatness reclaiming like I am not going to starve myself like so much more education around like what like what disorder eating is like all that all of it right. through the Obama administration. Yeah. And now we're back to effectively fascism and eating disorders.

And these two things are so related. Like, it's not just you need to shrink. I mean, I like the idea like fascism wants you to not be focused on the injustices outside. It needs you counting calories and small so you can't fight back. I love that narrative.

Yeah. But also it's like, and I think about this a lot and I'm going to talk about another podcast that I cannot like everyone has to listen to this. The whole kind of aesthetic of

right wing fascist, conservative womanness. The work that they've done like the Christy gnome of it all, all that stuff, right? So much fake hair. I want to get it right. And fake lips.

Kate man. Kate Mann, who's a great writer, she talks about it being conspicuous compliance. That's what these women are signaling. They're not signaling. They're not trying to hide their work that they're getting done on their face or their breasts. They're not trying to hide the extensions. No. But they are trying to conspicuously signal.

I comply. Yes. I comply. I comply with what you want. I have figured out what men want. I figured out what the president wants. and I will deform my own body, ruin my own life, dissolve my own morals to have you know that you're the center of my life. And so this whole book in terms of like having a culture that's so male-centered that women took on the male gaze without even realizing it because that was the only way to kind of get by back away from that into like an era where like,

feminism is back and lina dunham and lizzo and like all those things right and now we're back to yeah and now we're back to eating disorders and low-rise jeans and i'm just like guys i know guys i know don't do it um and so living through the cycle yeah it's yes that part is fascinating to me I had a note too when she was talking about that. But like the only hunger you were supposed to have was like sexual hunger, but like not hunger for food is like this like other thing that started to get in our heads around that time. And there's this is the darkest, saddest part of this book for me. It's also being so skinny that you're so flat. is also very much like enjoying pre-pubescent bodies.

And we have seen, like, that's the biggest, like, truly, there's a lot I disagree about with this administration. But the fact that there were so many women who were willing to vote for him for all kinds, whatever their single issue was, that were willing to vote for them and him and just did not care talking speaking of like listening to women's stories did not care that there are so many women that he has assaulted there are so many women who are girls children when he assaulted them and now we have this like flat body prepubescent looking body back in fashion while a pedophile runs our country I hated it. I hated that part. I mean, I think there's a way, you know, single issue voters, L.O.L. But I'm pro-life. I want to protect the children.

I'm anti-trans because protect the children. Right. I'm, I'm aha because we have to protect the children. children. Yep. None of those things are an actual threat to children. No. And the actual threats to children, like people who are like raping and assaulting children, like people who went to Epstein's Island, like a whole bunch. A lot. They are somehow not a part of a single voter issue. Not at all. And I think it's like it's like the, to me, the, like, like dot to dot between an intense misogyny and a willingness to kind of make children into

props for whatever you want them to be, but not actually engage with what's happening to them is like one and the same. It's like the thing where it's like, I can't be a misogynist. I love my mom. And you're like, that's not the same. No. It's like, I can't be, I can't be like I'm a great person. I'm protecting the children. It's like you voted for somebody. who's like an adjudicated rapist and like so much testimony around I can't it I mean sorry this is like no I mean it's not it's all but like the but the idea even that like release the files release the files we have to release the files I'm like we don't need the files we have the women yes talking into the microphone.

But even that somehow, two emails between men is more compelling than a woman. Yes. That part breaks my heart. I hate that part. But I think what Sophie Gilbert does so well is she really pulls that thread between you don't believe Pamela Anderson. Right. and you don't believe, you know, Paras Hilton.

Yeah. And therefore you don't believe Virginia Goffrey. Mm-mm. Those things are like those things are all on a continuum, right? Yes, yes. You get trained not to believe women who are powerful. Mm-hmm. So then when a powerless woman will say it's,

then you really don't believe her. Yes. Yeah. And it's not even that hard for them to convince you. I know. I know. Yeah. It's wild. I was talking with his name is Jeremy Gerrigan. Yeah, Jeremy Gerrigan. He kind of wrote about like he was a mega church pastor, a very large, very large megachurch pastor. And he started speaking up around the George Floyd stuff. and basically the elders called him in and said like you can um you can be silent for six weeks do not post about this do not talk about it at the church and then you can apologize and you can

go back to preaching or you can leave um and so he left so he wrote a book about like for him it was more redefining his Christianity than like leaving it um and i was talking to him about what you were mentioning where I was like, I just don't understand how like, to me, a collection of cells in a woman's body is more important to these people than like all these girls and women alive right now whose lives are going to get, are going to be worse because of this. And he said something that has stuck with me. And he was like, it's because it's a hypothetical. And he was like, they can, it's totally hypothetical. You can just be like, well, I think that life did start there. And at the time that I was interviewing him, we were bombing school children in Iran. He was

like, they don't want you to think about this very real thing that we can like wrap our heads around and talk about. Like, so like, no, we're not going to care about these, I think, 200 children that were just murdered all at once. We'll have you getting really worked up about a collect, what to me is a collection of cells in a woman's uterus. And I was like, you are so right. Like it's abstract and so then all the other stuff isn't going to matter it's not a person it's a projector screen for them to imagine yeah since like but then once that projector screen becomes an actual human person who's born they're like well i can't project onto it anymore it's its own thing and that's yucky and i don't want to do yeah and i'll be judgmental i just don't even don't even get me

started. I mean, it makes me, I think there's so many ways to, there's been some studies recently about like, maybe it wasn't a study. Now I'm trying to remember if it was a study or within my own clinical practice. But like, the way that like men and women will have an emotional reaction to something. And the emotions will be seen as these like fleeting feelings. But the men's emotional reaction is to be read as reality. Yeah. As opposed to his own nuanced personal perspective. Mm-hmm.

That doesn't make it less valid. Mm-mm. About having it be equally valid, right? Yeah. But in order to function, it's like the women's perspective is just like this hysteria and the men are seeing things really clearly. And it's like you're not seeing things clearly. You're having a justified emotional reaction.

Right. But they've devalued it so much when women have it that they like can't actually have that perspective within themselves. Yes. Because it makes them feel powerless or like they literally like can't conceive of the idea that they're not like a reality machine. Yes. And doing that work when I do couples therapy is like trying to explain to men sometimes.

I'm not saying you're not allowed to feel. feel how you feel. Right. But I'm also saying that's not reality. You don't get to take your feeling and tell everybody else you have to feel the same way. It's like, it's like I'm, they're shorting out. Yeah. And they don't believe me when I say, I still value how you feel. I want to go deeper on that. I want to understand what was going on. Can you talk to your wife about this experience so that you can can feel her empathy. Yeah. And they're like, no, I just want everyone to like conform to how I feel because I'm right. And you're like, that's not what's happening. Right. But it's so conditioned. And I think it's even conditioned in women, especially like what was really paid for me in the book where so many

times were like the critiques about women were coming from other women because we have also been conditioned to not trust ourselves, not trust our perspectives, to center the men's point of view. I felt really upset, but he said it was no big deal, so I guess it wasn't rape kind of vibe. Like that kind of shit. Yeah. Do you want to ruin a man's life? This boy's life, you're like, my life has been ruined. I was raped.

Like, I would love for some justice in some way. Yeah. Yeah. I do think there's so much, and I said this before, but there's so much about this where it's like, well, it's a really complicated moral issue and it's really nuanced. And that is also a tactic of abusers. They make everything really complicated and confusing. Who knows what happened? And it's like, this is actually a very clear issue.

But you want it to be complicated because it's within the complicated confusion, the fog that you are allowed to operate in an abusive way. You don't want clarity. Right. This is why we have marriages with some. somebody is abusive and you get them to couples therapy, the entire thing falls apart immediately. And it's because the therapist is like, I'm not going to actually, no, there's no fog here. No.

It's actually clear. Yes. Yes. Yeah. When I was in therapy, I was raised by two narcissists. And that was some of the, it's actually some of the most useful advice that I come back to. If I'm dealing with one because of work or if I think a friend is dealing with something similar, because my therapist would always say, like, do not get into details.

In this case with my mom, do not get to, don't get into details with her. Like, she's just going to spin it. She's going to spend it. She's just going to keep spinning it. There's literally no reason to even try to get sucked into defending yourself because she thinks it's like so complex and there's so much to it. And it's really, especially in that type of relationship, it comes down to like, do you care about talking about the relationship or are you just going to come up with details that you think

make things complicated and it is it's effective if you don't know how to catch it i think i know that like narcissism they're a narcissist he's a narcissist i know it's very it got very pop culture yeah it's very it got very pop culture you know i again like as a as a as a practicing psychotherapist like it's overused yes i agree A framework that I would offer people who are listening is like people can perform harm. They can use abusive narcissistic tactics and not be a narcissist. Yeah. I think every kind of emotional, financial, coercive control, abuse, all that.

Those all have narcissistic traits. And the person doesn't know. have to be a narcissist right like these things they overlap but they aren't like it's not like every duck is a bird but not every bird is a duck kind of thing yeah well it's like what i find a test you can have traits and then there's something else and then there's the disorder i can't remember what the middle part is but yeah but what i find fascinating about like this book and culture at large when you look at it through a misogynistic lens is the hallmarks of abuse yes are there controlling people's bodies controlling their finances telling them you need to be exactly this

way and then you'll get what i offered you just kidding you did it wrong or the rules have changed you know when you have a narcissistic parent pitting people against each other right it's like well i'm up here you to figure out which one of you is worse and then we'll team up and bully that person right Like all of that stuff is so prevalent just in how we've like constructed a capitalistic cis hetero patriarchy, you know, white supremacist patriarchy that when I read this book, what I also see is like textbook abuse. Yes. Instead of it being a single person, abusing a single person, it's a structure that enacts abuse on women, on children, and then, you know, complicate that when you add in disability,

fatness, any kind of race, immigration status, and class, right? But we don't talk about class in the United States, but in class. Yeah. So I think there's this way that when I'm reading this book, I'm just tracking abuse. Yeah. I'm tracking autistic abuse. And one of the ironies right now is. clients I have who have had abusive partners, they are struggling under this administration

in a very particular way because it is abuse. And you see pulling people in. They literally debase themselves to get any amount of safety. And then he discards them and just talks shit about them. Like that is textbook abuse. book. Everything in this book where it's like, get as thin as you can because that's the only way we're going to like, oh, too thin.

Yes. Yeah. Then it's like, what did you do to get that thin? And that's why did you decide that like you were going to do that? Yeah. There's also like I had this one quote speaking of abuse. There's a chapter where she talks about horror movies or just movies, but definitely horror movies as well.

but she kind of dives into like the the final girl but there was a study where they gave quotes to men from porn and quotes from rapists or things that rapists said while they were raping someone and the men can't tell the difference between the quotes they couldn't even tell the difference I'm like there you go Like, I understand there's kinks. There's that.

But when it's gotten so ingrained in even the sexuality that, like, talking about women in the same way that rapists are talking about them just seems normal, we've got some abuse going on on a cultural level. Yeah, that's rape culture, right? Mm-hmm. There it is. Yeah. Rapist, it's culture that has been on the traits of rapists. Yes. What's up?

But who's going to push back on? that right women well women are hysterical and we can't trust them and also this woman over here loves that mm-hmm so it can't be rape culture because she's cool yeah i like mm-hmm i mean for all of the ways that like i think it's been flattened since it came out it's like if you reread gone girl amy does i mean shit she makes some really good points yes she does mm-hmm i did everything right uh-huh yeah that i did right yeah i ate wings and cheeseburgers and drank beer and like state a size four and did all the such things and then he went and left me yeah him yes yes

why i agree with like all the murdering no of course not but you read that book and you're like i don't know acquitted yeah totally that that's the fun of uh that catharsis of a good for her story, especially nowadays. It's just, I mean, I had a really troubling conversation once in the writer's room of a TV show. I can't remember honestly how it came up. It might have been in the news or something, but a porn actress was saying that she was raped on set because she consented to A, B, and C. Right. And then the other actor in the scene did something that she had not consented to.

Yep. And she said, that's rape. And one of my coworkers said, that's not rape. And I was like, I don't know. I'm concerned about what way do I approach this with you? Do I start with it? Or do I attach this as like an OSHA labor? law issue.

Right. And inevitably, it was the OSHA and the contractual piece that was more compelling to him. I bet. Yeah. And I found that kind of horrifying to just be like. And when I circled back and said, this is my part of my question now is, why was that more compelling? Yes. Money, most likely.

Like the power structure was there and it wasn't an emotional thing about a woman being crazy. It was her agent had written a contract that they had signed and therefore had been, you know, notarized. And that made it real. But her experience on its own was not. And I was just like, yeah, what are we doing? It made me, it made me crazy. Yeah. It made me. Because I just feel like when you look at this book, I want to be very clear. It's like what Sophie Gilbert did in so many ways was she like, it was like she just organized a billion data points in such a way where once you look at it, you're like, how how was I also seeing these as like siloed moments as opposed to the continuum of debasement? Yeah, which the chapter that really brought that into focus for me, too, is the one about reality TV, which I am absolutely, not as much as I used to be, but I am a consumer of it. It's very intriguing to me. I think it's also something that you should try to be a conscious consumer of, like be aware of what you're watching. But the way that like that was the beginning of, she calls it like the speculator consumer.

and how we got to a point where performing, I have the quote bolded here somewhere, but it's essentially like performing your public or perform your private life publicly. And then we'll all think that that is the reality of your actual life, which is not true. and so then like I saw it what was it that it was like it was for the it used to be celebs they're just like us and now if the if our if a large chunk of our celebrity culture meaning reality TV people um is performing their private life then you can feel like celebs we're just like them and so there's like this little shift that happens with written not a little is a big one that has happens with reality TV. And then in terms of your point about things not being siloed,

reality TV is expansive. So it is, it's everything from like the OG Roney being like a mess in multiple, multiple levels. They're a very good version of even like the girls turning on girls like the title. But then we also have like America's next top model, which that's like that documentary that came out recently is a whole other thing. But a lot of the titles were like the girl who hates her hair. Like that was and we were just like eating it up. Then we get the Kardashians who are like both heroin chic and loved a BBL for a little bit. But our president is also a reality star whose image was very carefully crafted.

And when you were talking about emotional reactions in women, versus men. A woman could not, especially at the time it was airing, could not have acted the way he did on The Apprentice. They wouldn't think it was business like. He's even having emotional outbursts on that show extensively. And it became so ingrained in our culture that we really started to think that we knew who these people were. Like we didn't think they were performing their private life. We were like, no, we know who they are. It's a reality. Reality TV has warped a lot of different things. This, this chapter specifically made me pick up a book called Q the Sun. And that's like a very extensive breakdown of reality TV that gives you more

info. But the way she just like showed how it turned into like how, especially like Real Housewives franchise, how hard can you read the other women in these confessions? Like, can you bully these women so much that people find it entertaining? And it has stayed in our culture. Well, I think because people very quickly realize if you're not good TV, you're not going to stay. Right. Then there's that. And so this kind of conflation of their performance of self versus actual self. Right.

And some reality stars, I think, are very conscious of this is who I play on reality TV. And then there are. other people who I think maybe started that way, but after a while, like the two merged. And that is some scary stuff. Yes. From my perspective. Yeah. Because when the camera goes away, who do you become?

Yeah. Are you really safe person? Because now there's no upside. Right. But there's like the routines and behavior still. Yeah. No, I find. I find a lot of that stuff so deeply exploitive.

And, you know, coming from TV, it's like you also know how much that stuff is produced. Right. And I edit a lot for work. And people don't realize when you're watching and it switches cams, you're so sure that, like, that's what that moment was. Like, this person immediately started talking next. And especially if you're switching between two completely. separate camera angles, that could have been edited out of order. It always has huge pieces missing because they have to make it a 40-minute episode. And so thinking that we like know a person

from reality TV is just crazy. I mean, I think reality TV is somewhat better than it used to be. To me, I feel like reality TV was like the Wild West, like the sign that we're least and now everything's fair game, right? Now I think viewers are savvy enough and contestants are savvy enough to understand that there might be a separation or this is being produced, right? Yep. But then I think all of that energy just went to the internet. Yes, I agree.

And, you know, vlogging families and YouTube families where, like, there are no child labor laws. Yeah. And there are no laws about what you can and cannot show. and there are no like shooting days that protect people to have time off and if you're a seven year old and your mom's putting you on YouTube you're probably not signing a release no so I just think there's this interesting moment that I would be curious to kind of explore more which is women and children kind of become a similar status in my mind

in the sense of not to be believed yep to be protected in theory but not listen to in reality. Yes. But then at some point, small boys grow up to be men. Yes. And they get to access the power that has been denied to them. And the only way that they get to perform that power is by continuing a cycle of only I matter.