Lately it feels like everything is political—including half of the stuff we buy. And why not? We're all a sucker for a good "Feminist AF" tee, books or movies or TV shows with a strong female lead, or any advertising campaign that tries to appeal to women with messaging that's empowering, not degrading.
But where do we draw the line between real feminism and hollow empowerment? How much does it matter that the company making the product has women in positions of power, treats its employees well, doesn't outsource manufacturing to a shady factory with dangerous working conditions? How do we even know whether a company is doing all that? Should we buy something with a feminist slogan only if part of the proceeds are being donated to a good cause? And how do we make sure this deluge of feminist marketing doesn't fool us into thinking that our work is done, women are fine now, no need to keep fighting for our rights?
On Saturday we went to the annual summit held by She's the First, a nonprofit that works with high school and college students to raise money for girls in the developing world who are trying to become the first person in their family to graduate from high school. The auditorium was filled with young women who care about politics and feminism and diversity, and they didn't shy away from tough conversations about what that means. We sat in on a panel dedicated to the commercialization of feminism, and the conversation was so interesting that we decided to excerpt it for you below.
The talk was moderated by Jessica Bennett, author of Feminist Fight Club, and the panelists were Soraya Chemaly, director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project, and Heather Arnet, CEO of the Women and Girls Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania. Bennett helped create the meme #PussyGrabsBack, and put it on a T-shirt (proceeds went to RAINN, a sexual violence organization). Chemaly led a campaign to get Facebook to deal with content on its site that promotes violence against women. Arnet led a 2005 "girlcott" of Abercrombie & Fitch, urging the company to use empowering slogans on their clothing instead of slogans that demean women. (Of course, it didn't listen, and now the company is struggling to rebrand—turns out teens are no longer interested in buying demeaning shirts from half-naked men, after all.)
Jessica Bennett, Heather Arnet, and Soraya Chemaly onstage at the STF Summit in New York City
Kate Lord
