Being in a pop girl group is, in some ways, the ninth circle of celebrity hell. The practice can be infantilizing for the young women involved, while somehow also belittling and tokenizing and objectifying. The participants are carefully stage-managed and yet make easy targets for condescension and snark. And the experience combines the probing visibility of stardom with the dehumanization of being part of a bundle — a cog in the machinery of a Voltronic personality matrix — which can put groupmates in a constant charisma grudge match. As Victoria Beckham once confessed about her days as Posh Spice, "When I was on stage with the Spice Girls , I thought people were there to see the other four and not me."

The members of the U.K. girl group Little Mix quite literally began in compet

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