The cover for Sabrina Carpenter’s upcoming album, Man’s Best Friend, isn’t going over well.

Last week, the singer unveiled the polarizing artwork, which shows her on all fours while a male hand grabs her hair. Within seconds, users on X and TikTok labeled the image “misogynistic” and “irresponsible.” Others claimed that Carpenter was never “for the girls. “She’s never embodied the female gaze,” wrote one poster. “She is the type of man-hater that men prefer, putting on the image of a sexy and vengeful femme fatale, but all in the name of male attention and love.”

While some argued that the photograph was probably satirical, given Carpenter’s reputation for calling out her lover’s mistreatment in her music, others quickly dismissed those interpretations.

Overall, the cover seemed to confirm an observation that Carpenter’s critics have made throughout her Short ‘N’ Sweet Tour: Her sex-tinged lyrics and hyperfeminine image are too “male-centered.”

This line of criticism is all over social media these days, often aimed at women who are sexually forward or perceived as trying to appeal to men. There are a few different slurs and descriptions for this archetype — “pick-me,” “male-dominated,” “not a girl’s girl.” Social media is cluttered with warnings and treatises about these women. At best, the conventional wisdom goes, they’re annoying to be around. At worst, they’re a threat to women’s equality.

It’s a fraught type of criticism, especially when cultural misogyny is regaining a foothold it only briefly lost in the years following #MeToo movement. Meanwhile, the conversation may also be fueled by younger people, who are reportedly developing more conservative attitudes toward sex.

This tension around gender and sexuality feels emblematic of a particularly anxious climate, where every person, image, or viral moment feels like an explosive weapon in a cultural gender war. At the same time, these criticisms sound extremely familiar.

So-called anti-women women have a lot of new names

You can trace the recent fixation on “anti-women” behavior by women to a few viral trends, including the usage of the term “pick-me,” which originated on........

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