by Andi Zeisler
And yet, where the loose ends of feminism are concerned, we’re not much further along than we were in 1971, when then-president Richard Nixon quashed the Comprehensive Child Care Bill, a bipartisan measure that called for the establishment of child care centers open to everyone, and for every community in the United States to establish early-education programs. Once the bill was approved by both houses of Congress, it landed on Nixon’s desk—where he promptly vetoed it on the grounds that it was part of a stealthy Communist plot to rend America’s delicate moral fabric. He claimed that, if implemented, the bill “would commit the vast moral authority of the National Government to the side of communal approaches to childrearing” and undermine the sanctity of family and, especially, mothers’ roles. “The goal,” wrote New York Times columnist Gail Collins, “was not just to kill the bill but also to bury the idea of a national child-care entitlement forever.”2
Child care remains one of the overwhelming unfinished projects that feminist movements set out to fix over and over again; even modest proposals, like the tax credits for working parents proposed by Barack Obama in 2015, are met with outraged echoes of Nixon’s appeal to “traditional” values. The lowest-paying jobs—cashiers, waitresses, line workers in factories—are some of the only jobs available to women lacking a high-school or college degree; one in five fast-food workers lives below the poverty line.3 Where abortion and bodily autonomy are concerned, we’re actually moving backward. (Three words: mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds.) The Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified, which means that while we may feel and look equal to our male counterparts, women are still, officially, legally, not considered full citizens of the United States.
The phrase “no going back” has become a global mantra for feminist movements, used in the context of everything from state-sanctioned violence to LGBT rights to children’s television programming. The toothpaste is out of the tube, the genie’s out of the bottle, the ocean refuses to be held back by a broom. And yet, in our current pattern of two-steps-forward-one-step-back (or vice versa, depending on the week), there’s also no guarantee of a steady, sustained path forward. And this is why marketplace feminism—and, more to the point, our embrace of it—matters.
Celebration vs. Co-optation
Feminism these days really does look brighter and funnier, cooler and easier than ever before. Posting a video of Amy Schumer using a faux–boy band to take on “natural beauty” is a simple way to signify that you, too, are tired of bullshit bait-and-switch beauty standards. Watching a politician with shoddy facts and ahistorical opinions—on how uteruses work, say—get schooled by a million quick-thinking Internet wags can be intensely gratifying. That gamers can now play FIFA’s videogame as Alex Morgan and other world soccer stars is a big step forward for sports-game franchises. Perusing Etsy for “Riot Don’t Diet” pins and t-shirts proclaiming “Ovaries Before Brovaries” is an excellent way to spend a few minutes. (I will happily accept the Feminist Sloth Sticker Set from anyone who wants to buy it for me.) All of these things reflect feminism’s inroads into mass culture, but it’s still unclear what happens once it’s there. Marketplace feminism is seductive. But marketplace feminism itself is not equality.
The narrative that feminism has succeeded because it’s all over the Internet, because it’s a marketing buzzword, because there’s a handful of famous people happy to serve as its icons is as wrongheaded as the notion that feminism succeeded when (white) women got the vote or when the first female CEO stepped a sensible shoe into her spacious office. That doesn’t mean that these things aren’t important, or that they haven’t made a difference in people’s lives, because of course they have. But some women gaining some ground in many areas is not a wholesale feminist victory, especially since even that incremental progress has resulted in a disproportionate amount of fear.
If feminism has succeeded, for instance, why have state restrictions on abortion skyrocketed in the last half-dozen years, with fifty-one new restrictions enacted in the first half of 2015 alone?4 If we’re all equal now, why are women of all races underrepresented as advocates and experts in mainstream news outlets? If feminism has changed the culture so thoroughly, why are tabloids still worrying over which woman has the best beach body or concerned with what’s happening in Jennifer Aniston’s lonely old uterus? If women’s voices matter as much as anyone else’s, why do women receive rape and death threats on Twitter when they merely express an opinion on sports or video games, when millions of men express the same opinions with no one calling them a stupid whore or threatening to hack their phones or rape their lifeless bodies? And if feminism is something people are truly on board with, why is the first reaction to feminist discussions of gendered violence or structural inequality either, “But this happens to men too,” or “Not all men!”?
The problem is—the problem has always been—that feminism is not fun. It’s not supposed to be fun. It’s complex and hard and it pisses people off. It’s serious because it is about people demanding that their humanity be recognized as valuable. The root issues that feminism confronts—wage inequality, gendered divisions of labor, institutional racism and sexism, structural violence and, of course, bodily autonomy—are deeply unsexy. That’s a hard sell for fast-moving content streams that depend on online clicks and consumer appeals that exist to serve the bottom line. Even more difficult is that feminism is fundamentally about resetting the balance of power, and it makes people who hold that power uncomfortable because that’s what it has to do in order to work. So when we hear from those people—and, oh, do we hear from them—that feminism should modulate its voices, ask nicely for the rights it seeks, and keep anger and stridency out of the picture, let’s remember that large-scale social change doesn’t result from polite requests and sweet-talking appeasements. But make no mistake, that’s what marketplace feminism is: A way to promise potential detractors that feminism can exist in fundamentally unequal spaces without posing any foundational changes to them.
In the course of writing this book, I talked with, listened to, and eavesdropped on a lot of people about what feminism’s rise to cultural prominence means and why it matters. I heard optimism and excitement. I saw skepticism and eye-rolling. I listened to white college students talk about how Beyoncé could be a “gateway drug” that led to mainlining pure, unadulterated feminist theory. I listened to nonwhite feminists worried that a cultural embrace of only the least critical aspects of feminism won’t rectify erasures that are both historical and extremely current. I witnessed giddy recollections of feminist “click” moments from people of all ages. I saw the universal obscene hand gesture that asks “This self-indulgent media circle jerk again?”
And I asked how feminism’s high profile can be leveraged for concrete change, but almost nobody had an answer that suggested that there was only one answer. One thing almost everyone could agree on however, was this: there is a very fine line between celebrating feminism and co-opting it.
The central conflict, which I hope has been made clear throughout this book, is that while feminist movements seek to change systems, marketplace feminism prioritizes individuals. The wingwoman of neoliberalism, marketplace feminism’s focus is on casting systemic issues as personal ones and cheerily dispensing commercial fixes for them. You could focus on bummers like the lack of workable family-leave policies for low-wage workers, but wouldn’t it be a lot easier to seize your power and tap into your inner warrior? Marketplace feminism presumes that we can be clean, blank slates with no residue at all of the sexism or racism that defined the lives of those who came before us. It encourages us to believe that if we hit walls at school, at work, in relationships, in leadership, it’s not anything to do with gender, but with problems that can be resolved with better self-esteem, more confidence, maybe some life coaching.
Certifiably Feminist
So here we are. We’ve got feminist underpants and feminist romance novels, feminist gifs and feminist jokes. We’ve got 12 feminist cocktails to mak
e the world a better place, 10 reasons why The Mindy Project is a feminist masterpiece, and 9 quotes that explain why Game of Thrones is actually empowering. We know how many people flocked to the movies that have been heralded as game-changing feminist statements, but we don’t know whether those numbers will change deeply gendered systems that make game-changing feminist movies a necessity to begin with. Beyoncé’s claim to a feminist identity that people sought to deny her was undeniably powerful, and there’s no doubt that she (and Emma, and Lena, and Taylor) inspired people to claim that identity as well. But what happens next?
Feminism as a product, as a discrete measure of worthiness or unworthiness, as a selling point for products that have no animate capabilities, is a deeply imperfect way to assess whether feminism is “working” or not because it’s less about feminism than about capitalism. The companies that make feminist body lotion, feminist energy drinks, and feminist t-shirts are not interested in putting themselves out of business by actually changing the status quo.
The branding of feminism, meanwhile, is not a new phenomenon. The feminist movements we’re all most familiar with are ones that were able to be easily understood by outsiders with a minimum of difficulty. Optics mattered: First-wave feminists didn’t want the presence of women of color to put the kibosh on gaining suffrage; second-wave feminists didn’t want lesbian and transgender women “tainting” the movement with fringe identities. Both movements were selling a branded image to wary buyers. And the fractures in feminism that exist now exist in part because of the inability to broaden the scope of those brands—a mistake that can’t happen again if feminism wants to be a movement that serves more than an elite class.
Feminism has to evolve, and capitalizing on its ideology without any action effectively stunts that process. What we might see as liberatory is liberatory only within the already circumscribed goals of capitalism. More ways to consume fashion products that are “empowering” does not change the fact that the industry of fashion is demonstrably harmful to women at every level of production. Lionizing a male porn star as a feminist because of one offhand remark about respecting women does not magically change the exploitative economics of the sex industry. More female TV writers in a system that then says, “We’ve got enough female TV writers” after hiring two is not a triumph for diversity in that industry. Three black women winning Emmy Awards in 2015 does not mean that racist representations of black women now live only in Hollywood’s past. Making things less bad is not the same as making them good. Subtracting misogyny from pop culture is not the same as adding feminism to it.
But currently, marketplace feminism tells us to take what we can get. It tells us that we should be happy with what we’ve got, because we still don’t have enough power to ensure that what we’ve got won’t be taken away if we push for too much more. That’s not feminism, that’s Stockholm Syndrome.
There was a time, early on, when I was pretty adamant that people, especially women, who believed in the equal value and treatment of women had a responsibility to call themselves feminists; otherwise it was an insult to the people who helped build a world in which feminism was even an option. I forwarded Sarah D. Bunting’s now-famous blog post “Yes, You Are”—a great piece of writing—to countless people and grimaced when I heard women start their sentences with “I’m not a feminist, but . . . ” I know now that this was a shortsighted, non-intersectional perspective; I had failed to acknowledge the millions of women who were erased by movement feminism, who saw their issues sidelined, or who just didn’t know the language of feminism to begin with.
These days, I’m much less interested in who labels themselves feminist and more interested in what they’re doing with feminism. I no longer see mainstream acceptance of the term as the end goal, but as a useful tool for activism. These days, I want to see people interested in learning more than what’s printed in a BuzzFeed listicle. I want to hear the women I meet at college campuses ask questions that can’t be answered by publicity-wizened celebrities like Beyoncé or Emma Watson. I want idealism to be more than a passing fad. I want feminism to be meaningful long after no one is singing about it, or name-checking it on red carpets, or printing it on granny panties.
Marketplace feminism has made equality look attractive, sexy, and cool. It’s transformed everyday behaviors and activities into “bold feminist statements”; it’s endowed unremarkable celebrities with fascinating new dimensions; it’s allowed Taylor Swift to somehow convince us that having a squad of gorgeous friends by our sides at all times is the pinnacle of female equality. It’s made us more likely to honor a Muppet’s feminist bona fides than pay attention to a human woman’s less synergistic efforts. It’s convinced people that feminism can be accomplished by dressing up the status quo in slogan t-shirts and I-do-it-for-me heels. It’s moved boatloads of consumer product. It’s been a good run. But I hope—and I hope that you, too, hope—we can retain the excitement and joy that’s come from seeing a more feminist culture take shape, and bulk up the resolve that’s required to continue shaping it. A post–marketplace-feminism world may not be as headline-worthy, but it will be a world that benefits more than a commercially empowered few.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have become what it is without Jill Grinberg, my agent. She deserves much more than an acknowledgment, so hopefully by the time she reads this I will have sent her a basket of muffins or a very expensive wine that someone who knows about wine picked out.
I talked to a number of authors, journalists, scholars, activists, and all-around smarties for this book, and though I wasn’t able to quote all of them, each was full of fantastic insight. I thank them for taking the time to talk with me, and for the crucial work they do: Veronica Arreola, Jennifer L. Pozner, Linda Hirshman, Phoebe Robinson, Susan J. Douglas, Anna Holmes, Feminista Jones, J. Maureen Henderson, Leslie Bennetts, Leora Tanenbaum, Nicki Lisa Cole, Allison Dahl Crossley, Tamara Winfrey Harris, Jaclyn Friedman, Soraya Chemaly, Inkoo Kang, Melissa Silverstein, Jessica Bennett, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Mary Dore, Gloria Feldt, Jessica Valenti, Zeba Blay, Sarah Banet-Weiser, Lisa Wade, and Susan Brownmiller. Special thanks to Susan J. Douglas and bell hooks, the authors who first helped me understand that loving popular culture could be both immensely rewarding and endlessly frustrating.
Many thanks to my editors at PublicAffairs, Clive Priddle and Maria Goldverg, whose thoughtful guidance and editing made writing and revising this book as much of a pleasure as writing and revising a book can be. Thanks to Marco Pavia, my production editor, for moving things along and being patient as I procrastinated like hell on these acknowledgments. And thanks in advance to the publicity and marketing team at PublicAffairs—Lindsay Fradkoff, Emily Lavelle, Kristina Fazzolaro, and Jaime Leifer.
Thanks to my editors at Salon and Oregon Humanities, two publications in which I first explored some of the topics in this book. Also, since I don’t want to go out like Jonah Lehrer, I will note that I reworked sections of those pieces, but some of the phrasings remain the same.
Thanks to every one of my colleagues at Bitch Media, a group of people whose smarts, commitment, optimism, and humor are unparalleled, and whom I feel very lucky to spend my days with. Extra thanks to our Executive Director, Julie Falk, who tolerated both my absences and my neuroses over the past few years, and who also read early drafts of some of these chapters; and to Kate Lesniak and Ashley McAllister for helping to organize my life in ways that I consistently forget to.
Thanks to Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, my writing pal from Evanston to Jerusalem; to Paul Fischer, who loaned me his couch on several occasions as I researched the book; and to Rollene Saal, a woman I am just generally proud to know.
All kinds of thanks to the members of Little Justice Media Club Portland Original for their friendship, moral support, procrastination fodder, and cheese. Extra-strength gratitude to Briar Levit, whose creativity, steadiness, and curiosity about the world always inspire me to do more and be better.
Thanks
to Dawn Jones and Hearts + Sparks Productions.
Thanks to all my Zeisler siblings for their long-distance support. Beyond thanks to Jeff Walls, for his love and his patience with the nonsense that comes with being married to someone with a book deadline; and to Harvey Zeisler-Walls, for reminding me to take breaks.
And finally, thank you to all the feminists who have been, are, and will be.
NOTES
Introduction
1. The phrase “Montreal Massacre” is an alternative name for the 1979 mass murder at École Polytechnique, when a male student assassinated fourteen women, calling them “a bunch of feminists.”
Chapter 1
1. In theory, at least. Since then, there’s plenty of evidence that banks continue to discriminate on the basis of race.
2. Slade, Giles, Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007) page 19.
3. http://www.mediainstitute.edu/media-schools-blog/2014/02/edward-bernays/
4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1748044/pdf/v014p00172.pdf
5. Sherrie A. Inness, Disco Divas: Women and Popular Culture in the 1970s, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003, page 21.
6. https://fcpfragrance.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/successful-brands-charlie/