State-Sanctioned Feminism Just Landed—For Eleven Minutes
- Danika Fornear
- 23 hours ago
- 3 min read
Blue Origin’s billionaire-backed joyrides are not the revolution we were promised.
The future of feminism has apparently arrived—and it’s wearing a $200,000 custom space jumpsuit.
This week, Blue Origin sent a group of ultra-elite women—including Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée—on an 11-minute suborbital flight to celebrate female empowerment in space. The press called it historic. The branding called it inspiring. And the billionaires behind it called it progress.
Meanwhile, down on Earth, women in science, education, journalism, and social services are being laid off by the thousands. But don’t worry—some celebrities floated in zero gravity for a few minutes, so your daughter’s STEM dreams are officially valid now.
This is what state-sanctioned feminism looks like in 2025: perfectly packaged, PR-approved, and purchased with generational wealth. It’s feminism that fits neatly into a capsule and gets launched skyward with a hashtag and a media tour, while working-class women struggle to afford childcare, healthcare, or the time to fight for their rights.
Katy Perry, now unofficially dubbed “Rocket Queen” by a fawning media circuit, declared she was “super connected to love” after her Blue Origin jaunt. Another passenger called the trip “a tribute to what women can accomplish.” But what exactly was accomplished?
No data gathered.
No experiments conducted.
No underrepresented girls mentored.
Just rich people floating above us—both literally and economically—then descending to Earth with the kind of smug gravity usually reserved for TED Talks and perfume launches.
Let’s be real: this wasn’t a win for women. It was a win for billionaire branding.
It’s easy to call something “empowering” when it’s shiny, expensive, and out of reach for 99.9% of us. It’s harder to fund public schools, pay teachers a living wage, protect abortion access, or create real pipelines for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ youth to enter STEM fields. That kind of feminism isn’t flashy. It doesn’t sell tickets to space. It doesn’t come with a personal photographer and a post-flight exclusive on morning television.
This spectacle wasn’t about lifting up all women—it was about elevating the image of a few.
And that’s what makes it dangerous.
State-sanctioned feminism loves a photo-op but fears actual equity.
It will celebrate a celebrity’s “bravery” in space while remaining silent on the gutting of DEI programs.
It will host panels on women’s empowerment while workers organizing for fair pay get fired.
It will raise a glass to progress while it steps over the people who made it possible.
The truth is, we don’t need more billionaires in space. We need more boots on the ground.
We need policies, protections, and power that reach beyond the spotlight.
We need a feminism that’s not curated by corporate sponsors or launched from luxury pads.
We need one that builds from the bottom up, not floats from the top down.
Because if feminism has to be funded by the same people exploiting labor, silencing dissent, and dodging taxes, then it’s not feminism—it’s marketing.
So no, we don’t need more state-sanctioned spectacles from Blue Origin.
We need the kind of bold, messy, grounded resistance that doesn’t need a hashtag to be revolutionary.
And we don’t need a billionaire rocket to make space for us.
We’ve already been here. Building it. Holding it up.
It’s time they come back down to Earth and join our mission.
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If you’re looking for real inspiration—not the billionaire kind—look to the working-class moms across Florida and beyond who are organizing against fascism, not floating above it. At Save Our Democracy, women are putting everything on the line—time, energy, even their financial security—to build people-powered resistance in the face of a rising authoritarian movement. These are mothers who show up after night shifts, who wrangle kids between canvassing shifts, who don’t get press junkets or launch pads—but still fight every day to protect democracy for all of us. If you want to support a movement that’s actually making space for the future, start here.
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