How To Be A Woman in Public (Sophie Gilbert)

Hard Knox with Amanda Knox

Knox Robinson Productions

True Crime, Mental Health, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2026

⏱️ 59 minutes

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Summary

What happens when a culture decides that visibility is power and then punishes women for being visible? Amanda sits down with Sophie Gilbert, staff writer at The Atlantic, and author of Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, for a conversation that gets personal fast. They trace the arc from riot grrrl to the Spice Girls to Britney's breakdown to the Manosphere and make the case that what looks like progress for women has, again and again, been repackaged exploitation. They talk about why objectification got rebranded as empowerment, why reality television taught women that other women are the enemy, and why men are now being sold the same trap women were handed in the early 2000s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	For ad-free episodes of Hard Knocks, subscribe at Amandanox.substack.com, where you'll also find access to essays, bonus episodes, and more.
0:10.4	Enjoy.
0:15.8	I'm Amanda Knox, and you're listening to Hard Knocks.
0:20.0	I'm Amanda Knox, and you're listening to Hard Knocks.
0:38.9	Welcome to Hard Knocks. Today I speak with Sophie Gilbert, who if you are not aware, she is an incredible writer and cultural critic, known for her work on gender media and pop culture.
0:44.8	Her criticism has actually earned her incredible recognition, including the 2024 National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism, and she was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize
0:51.2	and Criticism.
0:52.1	So serious work, serious thinker, great writer. And we're going to
0:55.9	talk today about her most recent book, which is called Girl on Girl, how pop culture turned a
1:02.1	generation of women against themselves. In this conversation, Sophie and I get personal about
1:09.7	our, our upbringings, the cultural influences of our youth.
1:16.7	And we talk about also how we're seeing that repeated again today, but also not just towards
1:24.3	women, but towards men, and how both men and women in this current culture of hypervisibility are infantilizing and hypersexualizing themselves at the expense of true power. So I hope you all enjoy this fascinating conversation.
1:44.3	Welcome Sophie Gilbert to Hard Knox with Amanda Knox.
1:49.5	We are here to speak about your new book, Girl on Girl, a Provocative Title, no less.
1:57.9	And I mean, I guess especially considering me and what I was accused of and dehumanized over so we can probably get into that.
2:05.2	But I think the biggest thing that I'm excited about in talking to you is I finally have someone that I can complain to about Lola Bunny from Space Jam.
2:24.0	Like I feel like no one quite understands the pain of the millennial woman unless they understand Lola Bunny from Space Jam. Do you know what I'm
2:31.5	talking about? I've never seen Space Jam. Is she like Jessica
2:34.8	Rabbit? I know, I know almost watched it the other night literally with my husband and my kids.
2:39.0	Oh my God. I mean, okay, so look, Space Jam is a super fun, phenomenal film. Love it. But it is like if you're
2:49.5	talking about a cultural artifact from the late 90s and the early 2000s that shaped how a generation of women viewed themselves and they're like their understanding of their own power.
	...

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