Faux feminism has left the planet

Perry, for example, is quoted as declaring that “we are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut”, while also sharing the scintillating logistics of celebrity space travel: “I was like, What am I going to wear?” Then there’s an exchange between Sanchez, who predicts that “we’re going to have [eye]lash extensions flying in the capsule!”, and King, who wonders if the lashes will “stay on”, prompting the response from Sanchez: “Mine are glued on. They’re good.”

Fellow “crew” member Aisha Bowe, an aerospace engineer and entrepreneur, explains that she “wanted to test out” her hair to make sure it was rocket-ready: “So I skydived in Dubai with similar hair to make sure I would be good.”

None of this is to say, of course, that women can’t care about their eyelashes and hair. But in a world in which a whole lot of women don’t have money to eat – much less skydive in one of the planet’s most expensive places to see how their hair might fare during an 11-minute, multimillion-dollar jaunt in outer space – such chatter does nothing to further female empowerment.

It does everything, however, to reinforce inequality – and makes a mockery of Sanchez’s pre-flight claim that “we’re going to be able to come back and inspire people and bring people together.” Following the completion of Monday’s flight, she was quoted as reflecting on her quick inspection of the Earth from above: “You look at this, and you’re like, ‘We’re all in this together.’”

To be sure, it requires an astronomical hypocrisy to invoke a collective “we” when not all of “us” are engaged to the world’s second-richest human, who as of March had a net worth of $231.2bn. We’re also not really “in this together” when Bezos himself is actively abetting the obliteration of solidarity in the United States, cosying up to President Donald Trump – whose anti-feminist agenda is, mind you, clear as day – as he goes about happily dismantling whatever semblance of rights remain in the country.