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Finalist for the Los Angeles Press Club Book Award, muse to a Givenchy fashion collection, and recommended by the The New York Times, The Skimm, US Weekly, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Bustle, Lilith, Book Riot, Bitch, Oxfam, and more.The nostalgic, smart, and shocking account of how the 90s set back feminism, undermined girls and women, and shaped the millennial generation. To understand how we got here, we have to rewind the VHS tape. 90s Bitch tells the real story of women and girls in the 1990s, exploring how they were maligned by the media, vilified by popular culture, and objectified in the marketplace.Trailblazing women like Hillary Clinton, Anita Hill, Madeleine Albright, Janet Reno, and Marcia Clark, and were undermined. Newsmakers like Britney Spears, Monica Lewinsky, Tonya Harding and Lorena Bobbitt were shamed and misunderstood. The advent of the 24-hour news cycle reinforced society’s deeply entrenched misogyny. Meanwhile, marketers hijacked feminism, sold “Girl Power,” and poisoned a generation. Today echoes of 90s “bitchification” still exist everywhere we look. To understand why, we must revisit and interrogate the 1990s—a decade in which empowerment was twisted into objectification, exploitation, and subjugation. Yarrow’s thoughtful, juicy, and timely examination is a must-read for anyone trying to understand 21st century sexism and end it for the next generation. |
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“Yarrow’s biting autopsy of the decade scrutinizes the way society reduced — or “bitchified” — women at work, women at home, women in court, even women on ice skates . . . Direct quotes from politicians, journalists and comedians about the women provide the most jarring, oh-my-god-that-really-happened portions of Yarrow’s decade excavation.”
Pittsburg Post-Gazette
“Yarrow is a skillful scene setter, and unpacks trends that objectified women’s bodies, making it easy for bitchification to take root… That’s the real power of 90s Bitch — it looks beyond the gender war many girls didn’t realize they were fighting to show how they were implicated in their own submission… The good news is that we can use Yarrow’s framework to reevaluate the stories we tell and the narratives we accept about women who step outside the prescribed lines of female success. In doing so, we can set aside some of our ’90s nostalgia and work toward a future of gender parity.”
Los Angeles Review of Books
“The 1990s was a decade that produced a long line of vilified women – from Anita Hill to Monica Lewinsky – and, Yarrow contends, we need to understand that moment in feminist history to appreciate our own.”
New York Times
“In her trenchant book 90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality, Allison Yarrow looks back on that decade with a heightened awareness of sexism and connected forms of discrimination. 90s Bitch establishes that many of the gender troubles of the last few years—a presidential candidate calling his opponent a “nasty woman,” companies using female “empowerment” as a marketing ploy, a group of men threatening violence against women they believe have unjustly denied them sex—follow in a long tradition.”
The New Republic