Reframing Courtney Love: Fighting Gender Bias in Pop Culture with Lisa Whittington-Hill

This week on Reframeables, we spoke with author Lisa Whittington-Hill about her new book Girls, Interrupted: How Pop Culture is Failing Women. With Lisa, we jumped right in with a discussion about female rage, considered the failings of media for middle age women and teenage girls, and shared some nostalgic memories of Courtney Love — who Lisa has defended loudly enough to get herself thrown out of parties. We are unhappy with the misogyny that is baked into pop culture and social media, but we are happy to have conversations with someone like Lisa who is doing work to interrupt it.

Lisa Whittington-Hill is a writer based in Toronto, Canada. Her work has appeared in Longreads, The Walrus, Hazlitt, Catapult, and more. She is also the publisher of This Magazine, a progressive magazine of politics, ideas, and culture, and teaches in the publishing program at Centennial College.

Links:
Girls, Interrupted: How Pop Culture is Failing Women
For more from Lisa, follow her on Twitter and Instagram

We had an amazing time pouring hot wax into candle molds and pouring into our community at our most recent Reframeables Live event. Here are some highlights! (And stay tuned for more in the new year…Hint: it will involve soup!)

Two quotes about love. The first from upcoming Reframeables guest Claudia Dey, who is an author and clothing designer. (We are here for both art forms.)

Love is reinvention.

The second is one of our pastor father’s favourites from St. John of the Cross:

Where there is no love, put love — and you will find love.

Author and Giller winner Ian Williams reframes community.

Rebecca and Natalie reframe grief as a duo.

Radio host Caitlin Green reframes the influencer life.

Momfluencer Sara Peterson reframes the representation of motherhood online.

Natasha Nelson aka Supernova Momma reframes neurodiversity and parenting.

If our conversations support you in your own reframing practice, please consider buying our cookbook over on Ko-fi or joining as a regular supporter over on Patreon, where you get access to bonus episodes! Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube too. You can also upgrade your subscription below to receive the same benefits we offer our Patreon supporters. So many ways to join the Reframeables community.

Follow our minds a little further: subscribe to Rebecca at Observables and Natalie at Good Enough.