That’s one small step for women — and one giant step backward for womankind!
You’ve probably learned by now that, on Monday, Katy Perry, Gayle King, and several other girlbosses became Blue Origin’s first all-female crew to go to space. But there are a few important caveats the corporate media left out that, when taken into consideration, reveal that this great boon for feminism was actually a bust.
First is the idea that the six-woman team made up a “crew” in the conventional sense. When Elle Magazine gave a gushing profile of the “historic all-female space crew,” it failed to mention that the women were really more like passengers. After all, Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos’ remote-controlled space tourism company, and we certainly don’t think of commercial airline customers as part of the flight crew.
“We’re a crew!” Elle reported the women shouting in unison when they first met. Sure, ladies, but I imagine the Spice Girls had the same reaction when they first took the stage.
If you saw the “crew” bit, then you probably assumed these were professionally accomplished women with an important role to play on board. Not quite. Perry brought some A-list publicity, and so-called journalist Gayle King may have served as the wise ship mother, but the rest of the crew? Turns out they also brought more style than substance.
Also aboard was Lauren Sanchez, Bezos’ bombshell fiance, who reportedly helped pick out her fellow fliers. She might be a licensed pilot, but thinking that qualifies her to fly a rocket ship is not much better than saying Pete Buttigieg was qualified to lead the Department of Transportation because he loves trains.
Still, that’s better than her co-passenger Kerianne Flynn, whose resume consists of producer credits for indie films focused on “gender inequality.” Just what we need in space! Slightly more impressive is Amanda Nguyen, who actually started out as a NASA intern before she made #MeToo activism her full-time job.
Aisha Bowe was the only serious person on board. A self-identified “rocket scientist,” she paid her dues as a NASA engineer despite mostly winning publicity for her efforts to diversify STEM. But at least she has a dog in the fight as the founder and CEO of a data analytics tech firm.
It makes sense that a company seeking to corner the market for elite space vacations would stage a PR campaign aimed at the left-wing elitist sensibilities of their target demo (give it a few years, and White Lotus season six might just be set in space). But is it really that hard to find several girlbosses with actually impressive credentials who are willing to stage a photo op in space? Aim higher, Bezos! Literally.
The real kicker is that the women didn’t even make it to space. Not really. The 11-minute mission reached only suborbital flight — just long enough to enjoy a few minutes hovering in microgravity while Perry tortured the rest of the passengers with a song.
“It’s not about me. It’s not about singing my songs. It’s about a collective energy in there. It’s about us. It’s about making space for future women and taking up space and belonging, and it’s about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it,” Perry said after touching back down.
“This is all for the benefit of Earth,” she concluded. But it’s quite hard to see how.
Early feminism served a purpose when it fought for smart, talented, and qualified women to have opportunities they were denied purely on the basis of sex — when it fought for meritocracy rather than to undermine it. But the feminism of this Blue Origin flight serves the opposite purpose, to give out undeserved plaudits purely on the basis of sex. As a zero-sum sexual game to “take up space” otherwise filled by men, the flight represents modern feminism to a tee.
Perry and her cohort’s cheesy “take up space” pun is more damning than they realize. These passengers quite literally took up space and nothing more. Their “mission” served no real purpose, they achieved no real goal, and they made no contribution to science or humanity. They simply hovered around, taking up time, energy, and resources (not to mention the carbon footprint!) that could have otherwise been spent moving humanity forward. The “mission” simply asserted a toxic idea that we already have plenty of down on Earth: that women should be cheered just for existing.
Sorry, ladies, but this is not the attitude that’s going to put a man — or a woman — back on the moon or beat China in the 21st-century space race. We need the best and the brightest, regardless of sex, to tackle this final frontier. The feminine mystique and a little red lipstick go a long way — but they’re not going to colonize Mars.
Source link