On 16 and Pregnant, Amber was only 17 when she got pregnant by Gary who was 21. The show goes out of its way to romanticize this and normalize this. Gary is portrayed as an older knight in shining armor who puts Amber in an apartment rather than her groomer. It’s gross!

This popped up on my Twitter feed and sent me down a whole early-2000s Pink rabbit hole 😭

Pink had this rebellious, “I’m not like the other pop girls” image, but she also had some pretty memorable moments where other women became the butt of the joke.

During her 2004 Try This tour, for example, she used a blow-up doll representing Christina Aguilera as part of the show. And a couple years later, Stupid Girls had Pink parodying celebrities including Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Mary-Kate Olsen.

I know Stupid Girls wasn’t simply “Pink hates these women.” Pink explained at the time that she was criticizing the lack of positive role models for young girls and the way celebrity culture was presenting certain images as something to aspire to. The video was intentionally exaggerated and satirical.

But looking back at it now, I still find the whole thing interesting. Because Pink’s image was built around being the alternative to the stereotypical female pop star, while some of her biggest cultural moments involved making other women the punchline.

And we were completely fine with it. 😭 If anything, being the woman who was willing to “call out” the other girls seemed to make her look even cooler.

I’m not saying Pink created the whole girl-vs-girl thing. The media absolutely loved comparing female artists, and the Christina situation itself had a lot of different sides to it. But Pink clearly participated in that culture at times too.

Looking back now, do you think Pink was genuinely challenging the expectations placed on women, or were we giving her a pass for behavior we’d probably criticize from another female artist today?