About this episode

Sophie Gilbert discusses the complexities of feminism in the 1990s and its impact on women today.

Despite everyone’s nostalgic feelings for the ‘90’s, it was undoubtedly a complicated time for women.  Feminism was alive and well at the start of the decade, but author Sophie Gilbert explains how the movement’s energy collapsed into a problematic media storm that still lingers today.  She chronicles the decline through the ‘90s pop culture that shaped women from the Riot Grrrl movement, to the Spice Girls, and beyond in her book 'Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves.’ “At the beginning of the '90s, third wave feminism was very much alive. Anita Hill was testifying in Congress, it was the ‘Year of the Woman.’ You had Riot Grrrl, you had all this energy and this momentum behind trying to make things better for women,” Sophie explains. “And then over the course of the decade, it just kind of flatlined.” Sophie talks to Sam about her book, how feminism is more fractured than ever, and how the extreme caricatures of women we see today aren’t that different from the tropes of women in the ‘90s.    Sign up for Sam’s Newsletter to get…

People in this episode

Host: Sam Sanders

Guest: Sophie Gilbert

Topics covered

• feminism
• 1990s culture
• pop culture
• women's rights
• media representation

Keywords

• feminism
• 1990s
• pop culture
• Riot Grrrl
• Spice Girls
• media
• women

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: KCRW

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

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