Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
PublicAffairs (2017), Edition: Reprint, 304 pages
Description
"A critical assessment of feminism today by the founding editor and creative director of Bitch magazine draws on the stories of institutions and everyday women to illuminate how feminism has been compromised by market forces, subversive politics and popular culture, sharing strategic recommendations for how to reverse marginalizing trends,"--NoveList.
User reviews
LibraryThing member BornAnalog
Strictly speaking, much of this book shouldn't be surprising if a reader was not willfully ignorant of current marketing and consumer trends. However, the pervasive misogyny in US culture (which reveals itself in everything from the reaction to the horrifying prospect of a womman president, to the
The chief virtue of this book is that Zeisler uses her extensive experience following and critiquing a variety of media trends to connect a lot of dots. She provide a useful and very accessibly overview of how Capitalism marketed products to women, and specifically the different stages in its use of the women's movement to sell stuff.
The focus of her analysis is what she refers to as "marketplace feminism." If you haven't come across the term before, you will recognize the phenomenon instantly when she begins to describe it. If you have ever heard anyone wittering on about "choice" and "empowerment" when trying to sell you a "product for women" (one of the elements of her analysis is the way in which, in contrast to the late 70s and 80s, our kids are actually growing up in a product world that is more highly gendered today) then you have encountered marketplace feminism. There are some undoubted benefits to greater exposure to the concept of feminism, especially after so many years of pretending (in the US at least) that it didn't exist, and Zeisler doesn't hesitate to point to these benefits.
However, the main reason she is pissed about marketplace feminism, and she is right to be pissed, is that what it does is take a movement that since its inception was predicated upon collective action for the collective good, and make it all about individual gratification. In the process, the possibility of making value judgments is all but eliminated. If you are a woman and you are exercising your "choice" then that is awesome and therefore feminist and therefore awesome all over again! The possibility that your choice might be a lousy one that damages others is irrelevant. Likewise, if your purchase makes you feel "empowered" then that is an automatic good; the fact that your powerful pink "This is what a feminist looks like" iPhone cover was probably made by women earning starvation wages in dangerous factory conditions (ditto your phone) is irrelevant. Zeisler argues strongly for moving away from the focus on feminism as something one is, in and for oneself, and putting the emphasis back on feminism as something you do for others.
My only criticism is that I wish Zeisler had spent more time connecting the trends she identifies with larger political and cultural forces. A perhaps inadvertent side-effect of the numerous (often discouraging) examples focused on feminist controversies and marketing, is that it can sometime make it seem as if these elements were created only to try and co-opt and contain feminism. Some of them of course have been applied in exactly that way. But what she is talking about here is a larger shift in modern capitalism. We are way beyond Marx's concept of alienated labor now. What we have instead is what we might call "alienation of affection" in which capitalism takes many of our own best impulses, strips them from us, and sells them back to us. Choice and empowerment should, after all, be unproblematically good things. In a capitalist world they become key mechanisms for moving units of product. And the fact that these are larger trends will be recognizable to anyone who has ever encountered the bright and shiny face of a twenty-something who has just discovered Ayn Rand and is reveling in the fact that at last (At Last!) someone is justifying their own self-absorption.
For these marketing trends to work PR firms need to elicit the power of the mass media, and Zeisler uses her familiarity with the media world to point out the many ways in which feminist concerns are either routinely mis-handled by the mainstream press, or (more disturbingly) artfully manipulated by new media outlets whose only goal is to stir up the kind of controversy that will generate page clicks. This also probably shouldn't be news to anyone, but given the number of my highly educated friends and colleagues who seem powerless to recognize or resist reposting clickbait or falling into the cycnical cycle of the outrage machine, I suspect that Zeisler's examples here will prove shaming. They probably won't change people's practice, however, and here as elsewhere I found myself wishing for embedding the specific feminist project here in a more thoroughgoing criticism of the practices of the larger media sphere and their links with capitalism consumerism.
And yet I still found myself hopeful after reading the book, because the book's subtext is that we were feminists once, but we could be so once again.
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pathological Gamergate dudes) and the numbers of people (especially young women) who inhabit the happy "post-feminist" fantasy world means that this book contains several much needed kicks up the bum. And they are delivered with relish by Zeisler; I anticipate this book by itself should supply me with a year's worth of smack-down quotes for the clueless and callous.The chief virtue of this book is that Zeisler uses her extensive experience following and critiquing a variety of media trends to connect a lot of dots. She provide a useful and very accessibly overview of how Capitalism marketed products to women, and specifically the different stages in its use of the women's movement to sell stuff.
The focus of her analysis is what she refers to as "marketplace feminism." If you haven't come across the term before, you will recognize the phenomenon instantly when she begins to describe it. If you have ever heard anyone wittering on about "choice" and "empowerment" when trying to sell you a "product for women" (one of the elements of her analysis is the way in which, in contrast to the late 70s and 80s, our kids are actually growing up in a product world that is more highly gendered today) then you have encountered marketplace feminism. There are some undoubted benefits to greater exposure to the concept of feminism, especially after so many years of pretending (in the US at least) that it didn't exist, and Zeisler doesn't hesitate to point to these benefits.
However, the main reason she is pissed about marketplace feminism, and she is right to be pissed, is that what it does is take a movement that since its inception was predicated upon collective action for the collective good, and make it all about individual gratification. In the process, the possibility of making value judgments is all but eliminated. If you are a woman and you are exercising your "choice" then that is awesome and therefore feminist and therefore awesome all over again! The possibility that your choice might be a lousy one that damages others is irrelevant. Likewise, if your purchase makes you feel "empowered" then that is an automatic good; the fact that your powerful pink "This is what a feminist looks like" iPhone cover was probably made by women earning starvation wages in dangerous factory conditions (ditto your phone) is irrelevant. Zeisler argues strongly for moving away from the focus on feminism as something one is, in and for oneself, and putting the emphasis back on feminism as something you do for others.
My only criticism is that I wish Zeisler had spent more time connecting the trends she identifies with larger political and cultural forces. A perhaps inadvertent side-effect of the numerous (often discouraging) examples focused on feminist controversies and marketing, is that it can sometime make it seem as if these elements were created only to try and co-opt and contain feminism. Some of them of course have been applied in exactly that way. But what she is talking about here is a larger shift in modern capitalism. We are way beyond Marx's concept of alienated labor now. What we have instead is what we might call "alienation of affection" in which capitalism takes many of our own best impulses, strips them from us, and sells them back to us. Choice and empowerment should, after all, be unproblematically good things. In a capitalist world they become key mechanisms for moving units of product. And the fact that these are larger trends will be recognizable to anyone who has ever encountered the bright and shiny face of a twenty-something who has just discovered Ayn Rand and is reveling in the fact that at last (At Last!) someone is justifying their own self-absorption.
For these marketing trends to work PR firms need to elicit the power of the mass media, and Zeisler uses her familiarity with the media world to point out the many ways in which feminist concerns are either routinely mis-handled by the mainstream press, or (more disturbingly) artfully manipulated by new media outlets whose only goal is to stir up the kind of controversy that will generate page clicks. This also probably shouldn't be news to anyone, but given the number of my highly educated friends and colleagues who seem powerless to recognize or resist reposting clickbait or falling into the cycnical cycle of the outrage machine, I suspect that Zeisler's examples here will prove shaming. They probably won't change people's practice, however, and here as elsewhere I found myself wishing for embedding the specific feminist project here in a more thoroughgoing criticism of the practices of the larger media sphere and their links with capitalism consumerism.
And yet I still found myself hopeful after reading the book, because the book's subtext is that we were feminists once, but we could be so once again.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DavidWineberg
Is pop culture a better lens than political action to view the state of feminism? Andi Zeisler’s We Were Feminists Once posits that feminism has been taken over by Madison Avenue and capitalism, so that’s where we must look. She calls it marketplace feminism, the main takeaway of this book. In
Capitalism and Madison Avenue have been lurking about feminism right from the beginning. Marketplace feminism long ago overcame the stigma of hardcore feminism and has never looked back. Zeisler points out there are all kinds of so-called feminist products that have little or nothing to do with feminism, but they are feminist because the purveyors say so. Right in the commercials and on the packaging. So it must be true.
The basic point is sadly obvious and valid: feminism has been diluted by capitalism. The word empowered is so ubiquitous and overworked “We may have empowered ourselves into a corner”. There’s a whole chapter on the word, and it’s the best chapter in the book.
There appear to be no two people who have the same appreciation of feminism. And everyone seems to criticize everyone else’s definitions, as well as their lifestyles and life choices. The entire book is anecdotes along these lines, and the message from them seems to be Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. Everything counts, from t shirt slogans to song lyrics to tv interviews. And everyone is an expert. And nothing is forgotten - or forgiven.
Zeisler’s style is delightful. Every time I thought I’d had enough, she swung through with pointed, perceptive sarcasm, self deprecation or a caustic observation that kept me reading. She is knowledgeable, thorough, clever and smooth. The book though, doesn’t build. Every chapter is more of the same. And then, after all the enduring criticism of marketplace feminism, Zeisler concludes: “Marketplace feminism has made equality look attractive, sexy and cool.” And she hopes for more. So I don’t know.
David Wineberg
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a blistering summary of songs, commercials, bands, tv shows, films, novelists, fashion and especially actresses, the book is clear evidence of way too much television intake.Capitalism and Madison Avenue have been lurking about feminism right from the beginning. Marketplace feminism long ago overcame the stigma of hardcore feminism and has never looked back. Zeisler points out there are all kinds of so-called feminist products that have little or nothing to do with feminism, but they are feminist because the purveyors say so. Right in the commercials and on the packaging. So it must be true.
The basic point is sadly obvious and valid: feminism has been diluted by capitalism. The word empowered is so ubiquitous and overworked “We may have empowered ourselves into a corner”. There’s a whole chapter on the word, and it’s the best chapter in the book.
There appear to be no two people who have the same appreciation of feminism. And everyone seems to criticize everyone else’s definitions, as well as their lifestyles and life choices. The entire book is anecdotes along these lines, and the message from them seems to be Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. Everything counts, from t shirt slogans to song lyrics to tv interviews. And everyone is an expert. And nothing is forgotten - or forgiven.
Zeisler’s style is delightful. Every time I thought I’d had enough, she swung through with pointed, perceptive sarcasm, self deprecation or a caustic observation that kept me reading. She is knowledgeable, thorough, clever and smooth. The book though, doesn’t build. Every chapter is more of the same. And then, after all the enduring criticism of marketplace feminism, Zeisler concludes: “Marketplace feminism has made equality look attractive, sexy and cool.” And she hopes for more. So I don’t know.
David Wineberg
Show Less
LibraryThing member cindywho
Zeisler's analysis of "marketplace feminism" is very interesting but so contemporary that I wonder if I would understand it as well if I hadn't lived through the same pop culture moments as she has. I also will never look at the word "empower" in the same way again.
LibraryThing member roniweb
I admit I'm biased, but I think this is a great analysis of how feminism has grown into an arm of capitalism, which while it is fun to have feminist stuff to buy, isn't the point of feminism.
Awards
Oregon Book Awards (Finalist — General Nonfiction — 2017)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Non-Fiction — 2016)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2016
Physical description
304 p.; 5.5 inches
ISBN
9781610397735
Local notes
eminism has hit the big time. Once a dirty word brushed away with a grimace, "feminist" has been rebranded as a shiny label sported by movie and pop stars, fashion designers, and multi-hyphenate powerhouses like Beyoncé. It drives advertising and marketing campaigns for everything from wireless plans to underwear to perfume, presenting what's long been a movement for social justice as just another consumer choice in a vast market. Individual self-actualization is the goal, shopping more often than not the means, and celebrities the mouthpieces.
But what does it mean when social change becomes a brand identity? Feminism's splashy arrival at the center of today's media and pop-culture marketplace, after all, hasn't offered solutions to the movement's unfinished business. Planned Parenthood is under sustained attack, women are still paid 77 percent-or less-of the man's dollar, and vicious attacks on women, both on- and offline, are utterly routine.
Andi Zeisler, a founding editor of Bitch Media, draws on more than twenty years' experience interpreting popular culture in this biting history of how feminism has been co-opted, watered down, and turned into a gyratory media trend. Surveying movies, television, advertising, fashion, and more, Zeisler reveals a media landscape brimming with the language of empowerment, but offering little in the way of transformational change. Witty, fearless, and unflinching, We Were Feminists Once is the story of how we let this happen, and how we can amplify feminism's real purpose and power.
But what does it mean when social change becomes a brand identity? Feminism's splashy arrival at the center of today's media and pop-culture marketplace, after all, hasn't offered solutions to the movement's unfinished business. Planned Parenthood is under sustained attack, women are still paid 77 percent-or less-of the man's dollar, and vicious attacks on women, both on- and offline, are utterly routine.
Andi Zeisler, a founding editor of Bitch Media, draws on more than twenty years' experience interpreting popular culture in this biting history of how feminism has been co-opted, watered down, and turned into a gyratory media trend. Surveying movies, television, advertising, fashion, and more, Zeisler reveals a media landscape brimming with the language of empowerment, but offering little in the way of transformational change. Witty, fearless, and unflinching, We Were Feminists Once is the story of how we let this happen, and how we can amplify feminism's real purpose and power.
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Call number
7.4 Z3 we 2016