Sophie Gilbert, a London-based staff writer for the Atlantic magazine, has taken a survey of the Anglo-American pop culture landscape, and her findings aren’t pretty. In a new book, “Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves” she concludes that after decades of social and political progress for women, the patriarchy has come roaring back in the 21st century with the new-old belief that women’s proper place is in the kitchen and bedroom, not the boardroom or the military.
As a millennial herself, Gilbert wanted to explore, from the perspective of a critic, how and why seemingly every genre of entertainment in the 2000s, from movies and music to TV and fashion, was sending girls the message that it was OK to look and act like a pinup girl again.
“Why were we so easily persuaded of our own inadequacy? Who was setting the agenda? Why, for decades and even now, has virtually every cultural product been so insistently oriented around male desire and male pleasure?” she writes.
This cover image released by Penguin Press shows “Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves” by Sophie Gilbert (Penguin Press via AP)
The reasons are manifold, and the results indisputably clear. In music, the “ferocious activist energy of riot grrrls” gave way to the “ hyper-commercialized Spice Girls” over the course of the 1990s. Meanwhile, the emergence of hardcore rap celebrated misogyny and sexual violence against women. In literature and later in film, “Bridget Jones pioneered an enduring new female archetype: the trainwreck.” In fashion, powerful supermodels who knew what they were worth and demanded to be paid for it “were phased out in favor of frail, passive teenagers.”
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But in Gilbert’s view, nothing was as influential as the proliferation of porn, which has trained both men and women to see the latter as objects, “as things to silence, restrain, fetishize, or brutalize.” She nods to it in the meaning of her double-barreled title. “Girl on girl” is both a genre of porn and an acknowledgement of the way women have been turned against themselves and each other by the forces of postfeminism.
Chapter by chapter, Gilbert methodically shows how the backlash against second- and third-wave and riot grrrl feminism fueled the rise of incel culture, trad wives, the stay-at-home girlfriends on TikTok, and much more. There is a lot to unpack here, but it is well worth the effort. Especially if you, like Gilbert, are still coming to grips with the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the reelection of Donald Trump last year, demonstrating the evident appeal of his message to both men and a sizable minority of women.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A suspect whom authorities have linked to white supremacist movements has been arrested in the March 2019 fire that destroyed an office at a storied Tennessee social justice center.
Regan Prater was arrested last Thursday and charged with one count of arson.
An affidavit filed in federal court in East Tennessee says Prater’s posts in several group chats affiliated with white supremacist organizations connect him to the blaze at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market. In one private message, a witness who sent screenshots to the FBI asked a person authorities believe is Prater whether he set the fire.
“I’m not admitting anything,” the person using the screen name “Rooster” wrote. But he later went on to describe exactly how the fire was set with “a sparkler bomb and some Napalm.”
A white-power symbol was spray-painted on the pavement near the site of the fire. The affidavit describes it as a “triple cross” and says it was also found on one of the firearms used by a shooter who killed 51 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15, 2019, about two weeks before the Highlander fire.
Prater was previously sentenced to five years in federal prison for setting another fire in June 2019 at an adult video and novelty store in East Tennessee. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay $106,000 in restitution in that case. At the scene of that fire, investigators found a cellphone they later determined belonged to Prater. The phone included a short video showing a person inside the store lighting an accelerant, according to the affidavit.
The federal public defender listed as representing Prater did not respond to an email and phone message requesting comment.
Yearslong investigation sparked worries for Highlander’s leaders
The blaze at Highlander broke out in the early morning of March 29, 2019. No one was injured. The building that burned was part of a complex and it housed decades’ worth of irreplaceable documents, artifacts, speeches and other materials from different eras including the Civil Rights Movement.
FILE – Elise Bryant, left, and Naazima Ali celebrate during a gathering held to mark the anniversary of the Highlander Research and Education Center, Sept. 1, 2007 in New Market, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne, file)
FILE – A large sign hangs on the side of a barn during a gathering held to mark the anniversary of the Highlander Research and Education Center, Sept. 1, 2007 in New Market, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne, file)
FILE – This March 11, 2019 file photo shows Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., representing House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of N.Y., joined at left by Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, going before the House Rules Committee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE – In this undated photo provided by the Nashville Banner Archives, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections, Rosa Parks, center, and Myles Horton, right, meet at the Highlander Library in Monteagle, Tenn. (Nashville Banner Archives, Nashville Public Library, Special Collections via AP)
FILE – Mary Izett, right, Eric Bergman, center, and Doug Norman of Lafayette, Calif., sing during a gathering to mark the 75th Anniversary of the Highlander Research and Education Center Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007, in New Market, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne, file)
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FILE – Elise Bryant, left, and Naazima Ali celebrate during a gathering held to mark the anniversary of the Highlander Research and Education Center, Sept. 1, 2007 in New Market, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne, file)
In an interview, Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, a former co-executive director at Highlander, recalled arriving at the scene of the fire to discover some priceless items from the administrative office still smoldering.
“Every time the wind blew, we would see what was left of it go up in flames again, for weeks,” Woodard Henderson said.
The trauma of the ordeal was compounded by a feeling that, despite early signs that the culprit had ties to white supremacist movements, authorities were opaque about the investigation, Woodard Henderson said.
“We were told that it was like finding a needle in the haystack to prove who did it — that that’s in fact the point of an arson,” she said. “You’ve got to remember this was 2019, so Donald Trump was still in his first presidency. Frankly, for years, we didn’t get any updates.”
A week after the incident, Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, of Memphis, called for a federal probe. He also called on more government funding to counter an uptick in hate crimes and white nationalism nationwide.
Woodard Henderson said authorities informed Highlander’s leaders in 2022 that they were indeed victims of a hate-motivated attack.
Rosa Parks, John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr. had ties to the center
Highlander is known as a place where Civil Rights icons such as Rosa Parks and John Lewis received training. Parks attended a workshop there on integration in 1955, about six months before she famously refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She always credited Highlander with helping her become a more determined activist.
Parks returned to Highlander two years later with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for the school’s 25th anniversary celebration, where King gave a keynote address on achieving freedom and equality through nonviolence.
First established in Monteagle in 1932 as a center for union organizing, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was among its early supporters.
Highlander’s co-founder and longtime leader, Myles Horton, a white man, created a place that was unique in the Jim Crow South, where activists white and Black could build and strengthen alliances. In his memoir, Congressman Lewis wrote of how eye-opening being at Highlander was.
Highlander “was the first time in my life that I saw black people and white people not just sitting down together at long tables for shared meals, but also cleaning up together afterward, doing the dishes together, gathering together late into the night in deep discussion,” he wrote.
“That paved the way for Highlander’s work around the Civil Rights Movement, or the Black Freedom Struggle, as we should rightly call it,” said Allyn Steele, a co-executive director of Highlander.
Highlander turns 93 this year and, six years past the fire, it expects to complete a rebuild of its administrative office, Steele said.
Woodard Henderson said the arson attack on the center has never deterred it from its mission.
“I think if their goal was to break our spirit, they failed miserably,” she said. “If anything, it reminded us that there’s a collective responsibility in our movements to keep each other safe.”
Morrison reported from New York City. Associated Press writer Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this report.
With the summer travel season approaching, authorities are hoping to put the brakes on speeding and other dangerous driving.
Extra law enforcement will be out from Thursday, May 1 through Sept. 2, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Office of Traffic Safety announced on Wednesday.
Officers, deputies and troopers from nearly 300 agencies statewide will be participating in the extra enforcement.
Here’s why: Memorial Day through Labor Day are typically the most traveled days on Minnesota roads and nationwide.
“These so-called ‘100 deadliest days’ carry some of the largest fatal crash counts every year,” according to the DPS’ news release.
“To push back against the rise in deadly driving and to try to save lives, law enforcement will be focusing on speeding, seat belt usage, impairment and distraction — the four behaviors that are the largest contributors to fatal crashes.”
So far in Minnesota in 2025, there have been at least 15 speed-related fatalities, authorities report.
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U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland temporarily halted her directive for information at the administration’s request last week. But with the seven-day pause expiring at 5 p.m., she set May deadlines for officials to provide sworn testimony on anything they have done to return him to the U.S.
Abrego Garcia, 29, has been imprisoned in his native El Salvador for nearly seven weeks, while his mistaken deportation has become a flash point for President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and his increasing friction with the U.S. courts.
The president acknowledged to ABC News on Tuesday that he could call El Salvador’s president and have Abrego Garcia sent back. But Trump doubled down on his claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang.
“And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that,” Trump told ABC’s Terry Moran in the Oval Office.
Police in Maryland had identified Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member in 2019 based off his tattoos, Chicago Bulls hoodie and the word of a criminal informant. But Abrego Garcia was never charged. His attorneys say the informant claimed Abrego Garcia was in an MS-13 chapter in New York, where he’s never lived.
The gang identification by local police prompted the Trump administration to expel Abrego Garcia in March to an infamous El Salvador prison. But the deportation violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that protected him from being sent to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia had demonstrated to the immigration court that he likely faced persecution by local Salvadoran gangs that terrorized him and his family, court records state. He fled to the U.S. at 16 and lived in Maryland for about 14 years, working construction, getting married and raising three kids.
Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return him nearly a month ago, on April 4. The Supreme Court ruled April 10 that the administration must work to bring him back.
But the case only became more heated. Xinis lambasted a government lawyer who couldn’t explain what, if anything, the Trump administration has done. She then ordered officials to provide sworn testimony and other information to document their efforts.
The Trump administration appealed. But a federal appeals court backed Xinis’ order for information in a blistering ruling, saying, “we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.”
The Trump administration resisted, saying the information Xinis sought involved protected state secrets and government deliberations. She in turn scolded government lawyers for ignoring her orders and acting in “bad faith.”
