The Questionable Use of the Idea of Feminism as a Marketing Ploy Across History

Blue Origin’s all-female spaceflight was hailed as a feminist milestone but many saw it as a luxury spectacle masked as empowerment. It highlights how, numerous times in history, feminism has been co-opted to sell privilege rather than drive structural progress.

On April 14, 2025, Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket launched its NS-31 mission, carrying an all-female crew into suborbital space for an 11-minute flight. Marketed as a historic milestone for gender representation as the first all-woman space crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s 1963 solo flight, the mission was celebrated by its organizers and crew as a feminist triumph. However, the mission’s commercial nature, high cost, and celebrity-heavy roster have ignited a firestorm of criticism, exposing how the word “feminist” has been used in a misleading way to cloak privilege and spectacle in the guise of progress. The crew was a high-profile mix: Media personality Lauren Sánchez,, led the charge, joined by pop star Katy Perry, CBS Mornings host Gayle King, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. The automated flight, which crossed the Kármán line at 62 miles above Earth, offered a few minutes of weightlessness and stunning views before safely landing in West Texas. Blue Origin touted the mission as a step toward inclusivity in space exploration, with crew members like Sánchez and Bowe emphasizing its potential to inspire women and minorities in STEM fields.

A Feminist Milestone or a Misstep?

At first glance, an all-female space crew seems like a clear win for feminism—a field historically dominated by men. Yet, the mission’s execution and framing have led many to question whether it really advanced the cause of women or simply co-opted the feminist label for publicity. The word “feminist” has been used in a misleading way here, slapped onto a venture that critics argue prioritized elite access over systemic change.

The mission’s high cost which reportedly requiring a $150,000 deposit per person reflects its exclusivity. Only those with significant wealth or connections could afford such an experience. This sparked accusations of elitism, with figures like Emily Ratajkowski, Olivia Wilde, and Amy Schumer slamming the flight as a tone-deaf display of privilege amid global crises like poverty and climate change. Ratajkowski called it “beyond parody,” arguing it failed to represent meaningful progress for women. NS-31’s crew, while diverse in some respects, leaned heavily on high-profile figures whose participation felt more performative than transformative. Tagging this as a feminist victory risks diluting the term, equating a brief, costly joyride with the hard-fought battles for gender equity in education, workplaces, or even NASA’s astronaut corps.

Blue Origin and the crew emphasized the mission’s scientific contributions, particularly Amanda Nguyen’s experiments testing NASA spacesuit fabric and an electric chip for breast cancer detection. These efforts, while commendable, were overshadowed by the flight’s broader framing as a celebrity spectacle. The inclusion of figures like Katy Perry, whose mid-flight performance of “What a Wonderful World” was widely mocked, further undermined the mission’s credibility.  

The mission’s environmental impact drew significant scrutiny. Private spaceflight, including Blue Origin’s New Shepard, contributes to carbon emissions and resource use at a time when climate change is a pressing global issue. Ethically, the mission raised questions about the commercialization of space and the “astronaut” title. By branding wealthy passengers as trailblazers, Blue Origin risks trivializing the rigorous training and contributions of professional astronauts who undertake months-long missions with tangible scientific goals. The NS-31 crew’s brief flight, by contrast, felt like a luxury experience, not a feminist or scientific breakthrough. 

Historical and Analogous Instances Where “Feminist” Was Used to Market Questionable Agendas

The misuse of feminist ideals to market products or agendas that don’t genuinely advance gender equity is not a new phenomenon. Historically, corporations and campaigns have co-opted the language of women’s liberation to sell products or ideas that, in hindsight, were harmful or exploitative. 

Tobacco Industry’s “Torches of Freedom” Campaign

In the 1920s, cigarette companies like Lucky Strike and Philip Morris sought to expand their market by targeting women, who faced social taboos against smoking. The American Tobacco Company, under the guidance of public relations pioneer Edward Bernays, launched a campaign that framed cigarette smoking as a feminist act of rebellion against patriarchal norms. In 1929, Bernays orchestrated the infamous “Torches of Freedom” stunt during New York City’s Easter Sunday Parade. He hired debutantes to march as suffragists, publicly lighting cigarettes as symbols of liberation, with the press primed to cover the event as a bold feminist statement.

The campaign was a masterclass in manipulation. The feminist label was exploited to equate smoking with women’s suffrage and autonomy, despite the known health risks of tobacco, which were already suspected by medical professionals at the time. By the 1930s, smoking rates among women soared particularly as tobacco companies continued targeting them with “slimmer” cigarette brands like Virginia Slims in the 1960s.

This campaign’s legacy is a reminder of how feminist ideals can be hijacked for profit. It didn’t advance women’s rights but instead addicted generations to a deadly product, all under the guise of empowerment. The “Torches of Freedom” remains a textbook case of feminism being co-opted to sell harm. 

Household Appliances as “Liberation” Tools 

Post-World War II, the rise of consumer culture saw appliance manufacturers like General Electric and Westinghouse market household goods—washing machines, vacuum cleaners, electric stoves—as feminist breakthroughs. Advertisements proclaimed these products would “free” women from the drudgery of housework, granting them time for personal fulfillment. In reality, these campaigns reinforced traditional gender roles. The “liberation” promised by appliances often trapped women in the domestic sphere, as societal expectations shifted to demand even higher standards of cleanliness and homemaking. Many argue that these technologies increased women’s workloads by raising expectations for perfect households, while men were rarely encouraged to share domestic labor. Moreover, the high cost of appliances meant only middle- and upper-class women could afford them, excluding working-class and minority women from this so-called feminist progress.

Labeling these products as feminist tools was a marketing ploy to boost sales, not a genuine effort to challenge systemic inequalities like unequal division of labor or women’s exclusion from the workforce. 

Marketing of Beauty Products in the mid-20th century

In the mid-20th century, cosmetics and beauty industries, led by brands like Revlon, Avon, and Clairol, capitalized on feminist rhetoric to sell products that promised to empower women through appearance. Advertisements framed makeup, hair dye, and skincare as tools for self-expression and confidence, aligning with the era’s emerging discussions of women’s agency. Clairol’s 1957 campaign for its “Does she… or doesn’t she?” hair dye, for example, suggested that coloring one’s hair was a bold, feminist choice to defy aging and societal judgment, with the tagline implying secrecy and personal power. However, these campaigns often reinforced restrictive beauty standards that pressured women to conform to idealized notions of femininity.

The “feminist” framing ignored how these products were sold as necessities to “fix” perceived flaws, adding to insecurity rather than empowerment. By branding beauty products as feminist, these companies profited from women’s insecurities while sidestepping the structural barriers—like workplace discrimination or lack of political representation—that true feminism sought to address. 

Alcohol Marketing as Women’s “Freedom” 

In the wake of second-wave feminism, alcohol companies began targeting women with campaigns that framed drinking as a feminist act of equality. Brands launched ads in the 1970s and 1980s showing women in professional settings—sipping cocktails at bars or hosting parties—suggesting that drinking was a way to claim the social freedoms traditionally reserved for men. 

These campaigns co-opted feminist language to normalize alcohol consumption among women, ignoring the health risks of increased drinking, including liver disease and addiction, which rose among women during this period. The “feminist” framing also glossed over how these ads often sexualized women, portraying them as liberated only when appealing to male gazes. Like the cigarette campaigns decades earlier, this misuse of feminism prioritized corporate profits over women’s well-being, using empowerment as a veneer for exploitation.

The Blue Origin NS-31 mission, with its “feminist” branding of an exclusive spaceflight, echoes a long history of exploiting feminist ideals for questionable ends. Feminism is often used as a shiny label to sell things that don’t really help women. Time and again, the idea of “empowerment” gets twisted to push products or experiences that only benefit a few, usually the wealthy. These moves look like progress but often just keep old problems in place. These historical missteps tell us about the need to scrutinize modern claims of feminism, ensuring the term isn’t reduced to a marketing ploy but remains a call for systemic change that uplifts all, not just those who can afford the spotlight.