This Wasn’t Feminism.

It Was Marketing in a Spacesuit.

Ever since the media started hyping up Blue Origin’s “all-women” space flight, I felt it. That gut-check moment. That little voice saying: something’s off here.

This wasn’t a “giant leap for womankind.” It was a designer-branded skip. A $450,000 joyride dressed up as progress. And after reading the women who wrote about it—women who actually understand the history and future of feminism—I realized I wasn’t alone in my disgust.

Let’s be real: Blue Origin’s latest launch was less about science and more about optics. Katy Perry, Gayle King, Lauren Sánchez, and others were hailed as pioneers… for sitting in an autonomous rocket for 11 minutes. Floating in zero gravity. Taking selfies. Wearing Barbie-core flight suits reportedly designed by Bezos’ wife. And then being called feminist icons.

Please.

There was no science conducted. No exploration. No barrier-breaking. Just a flashy photo op that let Bezos spin space tourism as empowerment while siphoning money from the public and rebranding billionaires as benevolent feminists. As Moira Donegan wrote, “This wasn’t a mission for women everywhere. It was a luxury joyride, dressed up as empowerment.” And she nailed it.

Meanwhile, back on Earth—where most women live—real rights are disappearing. Roe v. Wade is gone. Access to reproductive care is dwindling. Trans women are fighting just to exist. Women of color are being pushed out of science, tech, and healthcare as DEI programs get slashed under right-wing pressure. Just last year, federal funding cuts led to hundreds of layoffs across NASA, the FDA, and the NIH—many of them women scientists and researchers. So while Bezos launches his fiancée and a pop star into orbit for content, actual women doing actual work are losing their jobs.

And let’s not forget: this entire spectacle happened while Congress passed the SAVES Act, compromising voting rights for women. But hey—at least we got lash extensions in space, right?

Here’s the part that stings a little: I originally had Joe—the lefty coffee mug from my Bud, Nick & Joe comic—calling bullshit on the launch. But deadlines are real. Comics need to hit when the story does. Joe, flawed as he is, wanted this to be true. A lot of us did.

But it’s not.

This wasn’t a milestone. It was a marketing campaign. A pinkwashed, billionaire-endorsed spectacle meant to keep us clapping while the floor is pulled out from under us. And yeah—fuck Katy Perry. You don’t get to turn feminism into a punchline by talking about “putting the ass in astronaut” while wearing lash extensions in orbit. You’re not the future. You’re a distraction.

I’m a man. I know that. But the women who helped me see through this charade—journalists, feminists, scientists—wrote with clarity and anger and truth. I’m just amplifying what they already knew: this wasn’t for women. It was for the men who built the rocket and the brand.

If you want to empower women? Start on Earth. In clinics, classrooms, labs, and courtrooms. Not in a glorified party bus shaped like a penis, blasting into the sky so billionaires can sell us equality they’ve never had to fight for.

Take it easy,
James