Pulitzer Prize finalist Sophie Gilbert delivers a blazing critique of how early-aughts pop culture turned women and girls against each other-and themselves-with disastrous consequences.

What happened to feminism in the 21st century? This question feels increasingly urgent after a period of reactionary cultural and legislative backlash. When widespread uncertainty about the movement’s power, focus, and currency threatens decades of progress.

Sophie Gilbert provides one answer, identifying an inflection point in the late 1990s and early 2000s. When the energy of third-wave and « riot girrrl » feminism collapsed into a regressive period of hyper-objectification, sexualization, and infantilization.

Gilbert tracks many of the period’s dominant themes back to the explosion of internet porn. Tracing its widespread influence as it began to pervade our collective consciousness.

Gilbert paints a devastating picture of an era when a distinctly American confluence of excess, materialism, and power-worship collided with the culture’s reactionary, puritanical, and chauvinistic currents.

Amid a collective reconsideration of the way women are treated in public, Girl on Girl is a blistering indictment of the matrix of misogyny. The one that undergirded the cultural production of the early twenty-first century. And how it continues to shape our world today

Relatable, wide-ranging and covering TV, film, music, journalism and the internet, Sophie Gilbert asks how did we get here. And what lies ahead.

Girl on Girl : How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves – Sophie Gilbert – 9781399812320

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Jina Mahsa Amini’s death at the hands of Iran’s Morality Police on 16 September 2022 sparked widespread protests across the country.

Women took to the streets, uncovering their hair, burning headscarves and chanting ‘Woman Life Freedom’ – ‘Zan Zendegi Azadi’ in Persian and ‘Jin Jîyan Azadî’ in Kurdish – in mass demonstrations. An explosion of creative resistance followed as art and photography shared online went viral. People around the world saw what was really going on in Iran.

This striking collection captures this historic moment in artwork and first-person accounts. It goes behind the scenes at forbidden fashion shows. It records the sound of dissent in Iran where it is illegal for women to sing unaccompanied in public. And walks the streets of Tehran with ‘The Smarties’ – Gen Z women who colour and show their hair in defiance of the authorities, despite the potentially devastating consequences.

Extolling the power of art, writing and body politics – both female and queer – this collection is a universal rallying call. And a celebration of the women the regime has tried and failed to silence.

This is what protest looks like.

Woman Life Freedom : Voices and Art from the Women’s Protests in Iran – edited by Malu Halasa – 9780863569722

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tThe history of autism is male. It is time for women and girls to enter the spotlight. For decades, our understanding of autism has been based on stereotypes of ‘socially awkward’ men and boys.

But this isn’t because autism doesn’t affect women; it is because the system built to identify it has completely failed them. This blind spot has left generations of women and girls misunderstood and misdiagnosed. In this book, leading neuroscientist Gina Rippon challenges this biased view of autism and explores the female autistic experience.

She reveals how girls on the spectrum learn to ‘hide in plain sight’ by camouflaging to fit in. Drawing on decades of research and powerful first-person accounts, Rippon shows how the female autistic brain is ‘differently different’ and urges us to give these lost girls their rightful place on the spectrum.

The Lost Girls of Autism : The Untold Story of Women on the Spectrum – Gina Rippon – 9781035011643

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In this sequel to Hope in the Dark, Solnit surveys a world that has changed dramatically since the year 1960. Despite the forces seeking to turn back the clock on history, change is not a possibility. It is an inevitability.

The changes amount to nothing less than dismantling an old civilization and building a new one. One whose newness is often the return of the old ways and wisdoms. In this rising worldview, interconnection is a core idea and value.

But because the transformation is obscured within a longer arc of history, its scale is seldom recognized.

While the white nationalist and authoritarian backlash drives individualism and isolation, this new world embraces antiracism, feminism, a more expansive understanding of gender, environmental thinking, scientific breakthroughs, and Indigenous and non-Western ideas, pointing toward a more interconnected, relational world.

Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than 25 books, including Men Explain Things to Me. A longtime climate and human rights activist, she serves on the boards of Oil Change International and Third Act.

The Beginning Comes After the End : Notes on a World of Change – Rebecca Solnit – 9798888904510

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A beautiful, healing book for anyone who has ever struggled with pregnancy loss and recovery, and is looking for symbols of hope in the wider, wilder world. When Jennifer Lane finally fell pregnant, she and her partner were overjoyed. But it wasn’t an easy pregnancy, and her journey towards motherhood was, in the end, a story of loss.

In the wake of her traumatic grief and physical recovery, Jennifer – a practising green witch – was left questioning everything about her beliefs. Trust your intuition, they say. But what if the worst thing that could happen does?As she grieved, Jennifer turned to the mysteries of our animal natures, witchcraft and women’s fertility for understanding and comfort.

Underwing : A Story of Motherhood, Loss and Wild Intuition – Jennifer Lane – 9781914613500

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AI is here, bringing a seismic shift in the way our society operates. Might this mean a future reimagined on equitable terms for women and marginalised groups everywhere?Not unless we fight for it.

At present, power remains largely in the hands of a few rich, white men.

New AI-driven technologies, with misogyny baked into their design, are putting women in danger, their rights and safety sacrificed at the altar of profitability and reckless speed.

In this book, Laura Bates takes us deep into the heart of this rapidly evolving world. She explores the metaverse, confronts deepfake pornography, travels to cyber brothels, tests chatbots, and hears from schools in the grip of online sexual abuse, showing how our lives – from education to work, sex to entertainment – are being infiltrated by easily accessible technologies that are changing the way we live and love.

What she finds is a wild west where existing forms of discrimination, inequality and harassment are being coded into the future we will all have little choice about living in. Unless we seize this moment to demand change.

Gripping, courageous and eye-opening.

The New Age of Sexism : How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny – Laura Bates – 9781471190513

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From the debris of a troubled early life comes an astonishing tale of survival, a paean to the pursuit of beauty, self-expression, desire–for men and women–and the exhilaration of swimming

THIS IS NOT YOUR MOTHER’S MEMOIR.

Lidia Yuknavitch, a lifelong swimmer and Olympic hopeful, escapes her raging father and alcoholic and suicidal mother when she accepts a swimming scholarship which drug and alcohol addiction eventually cause her to lose.

What follows is promiscuous sex with both men and women, some of them famous, and some of it S&M, as Lidia discovers the power of her sexuality to help her forget her pain. The forgetting doesn’t last, though, and it is her hard-earned career as a writer and teacher, and the love of her husband and son, that ultimately create the life she needs to survive.

The Chronology of Water – Lidia Yuknavitch – 9781786893307

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L’incroyable nouveau livre féministe de Florence Given, l’autrice de Women Don’t Owe You Pretty.

This book will help women uncover their sense of awe and wonder that has been buried by the layers of shame and self-objectification that get piled on us by the patriarchy. For too long we have internalised the belief that our bodies are things to be looked at – instead of lived in.

That it’s embarrassing to fully express ourselves. That we cannot trust our desire. Women Living Deliciously unpacks the many barriers women face when trying to access joy so that they can discover the delicious life that’s theirs for the taking.

International-bestselling author Florence Given wants to restore your lust for life and your sense of agency, giving you the courage and permission to inch closer to the wildly expansive life that you FULLY deserve – not in the future, not when you’re perfect, not when you’re prettier – but right NOW!

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It can be difficult to navigate a lifetime’s worth of relationship patterns to clearly see the best ways to treat the folks we care about.  And be treated well in return.

In A Quick & Easy Guide to Healthy Relationships, Mariah-Rose Marie offers a cheery, articulate, and fun-to-read guide to navigating, recognizing, and reenforcing positives patterns in friendships, romances, families, and work connections, all while taking care of your own head and heart in the process.

From tips for engaging in difficult conversations, advice on communicating boundaries, and resources for strengthening bonds, this guide can help you make your relationships stronger and healthier than ever.

The latest volume of the critically acclaimed, bestselling A Quick & Easy Guide series of educational comics.

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A lively, sharp and thought-provoking exploration of the enduring stereotype of the dangerous single woman in popular culture. From the obsessive ‘bunny boiler’ of Fatal Attraction to the tabloid frenzy over Taylor Swift’s relationship status, Caroline Young explores how single women have so often been portrayed as unstable, dangerous, or incomplete. Blending cultural criticism with her own personal experience, Young examines how these stereotypes have been shaped by broader social trends, including the antifeminist backlash of the 1980s and the current renaissance of the ‘trad-wife’.

Through her analysis of books, movies, and TV shows, she reveals how these narratives reflect deeper anxieties about women’s independence. Engaging, witty, fun and feminist, Single and Psycho is a timely critique of how society views single women – and a celebration of their complexity and resilience.

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