holding space for taking up space up in space
she believed she could, so she did hitch an 11-minute ride on a glorified amusement park drop tower to put the “ass” back in astronaut.
the blue origin flight is one of those stories that sends me into an ideological tailspin because i hate it so much, but worry i only hate it because of internalized misogyny, but then i do a double-take and, no, i was right, i hate it a lot.
sure, it was wasteful and tone-deaf and katy perry’s “stem of it all” sounds like the first few months i had access to medical marijuana and the pbs spacetime youtube channel, but i don’t think that’s what’s gotten under my skin so badly.
it’s the intentional obliviousness of choice feminism – an intellectually lazy and politically impotent framing which inherently reinforces the status quo by insisting that we are liberated not only by our choices, but within them. anything is feminist if a woman chooses to do it, and a woman can choose to do anything!
this is how we get celebrities saying they want to inspire the next generation (and “make space and science glam”) nine months after releasing a music video for which the theme broadly appeared to be “bouncing boobily”. it’s how we get young women who think that calling themselves a “tradwife” is subversive. it’s how we conveniently give up our autonomy, too easily satiated by the bread and circuses (or have you cut out carbs entirely?). it’s the same trick parents use on their defiant toddlers: do you want to wear red shoes or black shoes? do you want to be this object, or that?
it’s not the flight itself that rubs me the wrong way, or even the mental gymnastics to justify it in the name of Empowerment™️. it’s the patronizing assertion that as long as women can pay to do weird, unnecessary shit, that’s progress, baby.
unless bezos is going to start performing abortions up there, i think we can cool it on girlbossing literally too close to the sun.
(here is a good pitchfork article)