Girl dinner. Hot girl walks. Weird girls. Clean girls. Rat girls. Snail girls. Everywhere we look, it seems, a certain kind of girliness is being celebrated – from Beyonce to Barbie to Taylor Swift to TikTok. But what really is girl culture? Jess and Susie revisit a seminal photography book from the early 2000s, Lauren Greenfield’s “Girl Culture,” to ask: What does it mean when girlhood is being glorified but individual girls are more miserable than ever?    

FOR MORE:
The joy of communal girlhood; the agony of teen girls (by Jessica Bennett, NYT, 2024)
Being 13 (By Jessica Bennett, NYT, 2023)
This Is 18 (By Jessica Bennett, NYT, 2018)
Girl Culture, by Lauren Greenfield (TIME, 2002)

Girl dinner. Hot girl walks. Weird girls. Clean girls. Rat girls. Snail girls. Everywhere we look, it seems, a certain kind of girliness is being celebrated – from Beyonce to Barbie to Taylor Swift to TikTok. But what really is girl culture? Jess and Susie revisit a seminal photography book from the early 2000s, Lauren Greenfield’s “Girl Culture,” to ask: What does it mean when girlhood is being glorified but individual girls are more miserable than ever?    
FOR MORE:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/opinion/girlhood-mental-health-taylor-swift.html">The joy of communal girlhood; the agony of teen girls</a> (by Jessica Bennett, NYT, 2024)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/20/well/family/13-year-old-girls-social-media-self-esteem.html?smid=rd">Being 13</a> (By Jessica Bennett, NYT, 2023)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/11/style/this-is-18.html">This Is 18</a> (By Jessica Bennett, NYT, 2018)</li>
<li><a href="https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2042670_2042639,00.html">Girl Culture, by Lauren Greenfield</a> (TIME, 2002)</li>
</ul>

Is there a cultural moment from your past that looks different in retrospect? Maybe it’s a scandalous tabloid story seared into your teenage brain or a political punchline that just feels wrong now. It might be a very specific red swimsuit that inspired a decade of plastic surgery (see: “Baywatch”) or the inescapable smell of an entire generation of prepubescent boys (Axe body spray, anyone?). Each week on IN RETROSPECT, Emmy-winning journalist Susie Banikarim and New York Times editor Jessica Bennett revisit a pop culture moment from the 80s and 90s that shaped them — to try to understand what it taught us about the world, and a woman’s place in it.

Talk to us at @inretropod, @susiebnyc and @jessicabennett on Instagram. New episodes each Friday.

Is there a cultural moment from your past that looks different in retrospect? Maybe it’s a scandalous tabloid story seared into your teenage brain or a political punchline that just feels wrong now. It might be a very specific red swimsuit that inspired a decade of plastic surgery (see: “Baywatch”) or the inescapable smell of an entire generation of prepubescent boys (Axe body spray, anyone?). Each week on IN RETROSPECT, Emmy-winning journalist Susie Banikarim and New York Times editor Jessica Bennett revisit a pop culture moment from the 80s and 90s that shaped them — to try to understand what it taught us about the world, and a woman’s place in it.
Talk to us at @inretropod, @susiebnyc and @jessicabennett on Instagram. New episodes each Friday.

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