Andi ZeislerRezensionen

Aaahh, this book was a breath of fresh air, putting into words a LOT of my feelings about current day feminism. It does not really present any solutions though, which is why it's not getting five stars. I don't know how we're going to reclaim feminism from what it has become now, BUT I do like that someone managed to explain the problem to me and talk about shit that really matters for once.

Probably this just means I'm going to become even more bitter about the current state of the world, but that's my cross to bear, I suppose ...

***Why do I want to read this?***
1. A youtuber you respect recommended it because:
2. It made her rhing about the problems there are with (of the word? Of the concept?) Feminism.
3. It sounds as if you can learn how to better talk about the subject than you do now.

Entertainingly written with a lot of pop culture references that are specific to the U.S.

(4.5/5) I have long been frustrated with what Zeisler calls marketplace feminism, but never had the words to identify it. Touching on a range of topics across pop culture and consumer culture, this book is an in depth exploration of the capitalist exploitation of feminism and feminist ideals. While there were parts throughout I wished were more fleshed out, the author includes a section of notes and works cited at the end. I appreciated the straightforward and frank tone, and the accessibility of the writing.

Not bad. I love Andi Zeisler (subscribed to her magazine for years) and she writes beautifully; she makes consistently good points that are well-substantiated. My only quibble is that many of her points aren't exactly groundbreaking--I mean, of course Dove Real Beauty is talking out of both sides of its mouth--but given the zeitgeist she can be forgiven for making them regardless. Highly recommend as an accessible read on the pluses and minuses of modern-day popular feminism.

One of my favorite books regarding women and pop culture is Susan Douglas’s [Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media], which I read in the mid-90s. It offered fascinating insight into the contradictory messages pop culture had been giving women from the 50s through the 70s. Before reading her book, I hadn’t really looked objectively at or made a study of pop culture. For example, I had never noticed, even in hindsight, what she called the era of the “magical woman” when there were so many television shows featuring women with “magical” powers (i.e. “Bewitched”, “The Flying Nun”, “I Dream of Jeannie”) and what was that communicating to us!? I had always hoped she would write a second book bringing the discussion forward. For example her discussion of television ended in the 70s with Maude and I thought, what about Murphy Brown. Roseanne and Designing Women? She didn’t write a sequel, but some time ago I found this book by Zeisler and have only recently picked it up off the pile.

Zeisler writes a excellent, succinct book (148 pages) on the same subject, equally insightful, a bit dense and not quite in as entertaining style as Douglas’s, but certainly not dry. About half of her book is redundant if one has read the earlier book, but really it’s a nice revisit of the subject and a warm-up for the discussion of the later eras (the Zeisler was published in 2008).
The newer book, however, includes women in advertising and the consumer culture; much more content on music, and touches on media literacy (i.e. how politics have now become part of pop culture because of the media). I admit I’ve not kept up with all of pop culture over the year but the subject still fascinates me and this is an accessible and smart book on the subject.

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.

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.

This book is a cultural overview, and as such, it didn't dig as deep as I personally would have liked. That is probably because nothing here was news to me; I lived through this.

However, I could not agree with Zeisler's thesis more:

"There is a very fine line between celebrating feminism and co-opting it. The central conflict, which I hope has been made clear throughout this books is that while feminist movements seek to change systems, marketplace feminism prioritizes individuals. The wing-woman of neoliberalism, marketplace feminism focus is on casting systemic issues as personal ones and cheerily dispensing commercial fixes for them. You could focus on bummers like the lack of workable family leave policies for low wage workers, but wouldn't it be a lot easier to cease your power and tap into your inner warrior? Marketplace feminism presumes that we can be clean, blank slates with no residue at all of the sexism or racism that defined the lives of those who came before us. It encourages us to believe that if we hit walls at school, at work, in relationships, in leadership it's not anything to do with gender but with problems that can be resolved with better self-esteem, more confidence, maybe some life coaching."

Amen, sister. I am going to recommend this to my freshmen because I think it will really speak to them and highlight cultural "events" such as 'Sex and the City,' or Dove's Real Beauty Ad Campaign, that they probably take at face value, and unpacks recent history.

Solid, broad reading of contemporary feminism with critiques of consumerism and the prioritization of the individual success over structural change. Very accessible writing.

Ms. Zeisler is one of the founders of Bitch magazine, and wrote this survey of feminism in pop culture covering the 1940s through the early 2000s. It’s pretty brief at about 150 pages, and doesn’t go too deeply into any one topic, but it’s a nice basic introduction to the topic.

Broken down into just five chapters, the book explores the development of how women are portrayed in pop culture, as well as (to a lesser extent) how much of a say women have had in how they are portrayed. I described it to my husband as feeling like the first book one might read in a 100-level American Studies class that was going to have a bit of a focus on gender.

I found the final chapter – “Women Under the Influence” – to be a bit troublesome. In this one Ms. Zeisler attempts to have a fairly basic discussion about the issues around pornography, sex work, and whether they are (or can be feminist acts), but given how surface-level the brevity of the book is, she just doesn’t have the time to provide a really good discussion on the topic. She definitely needed to bring it up, but I found the way she chose to do it to be lacking. She also has a few pages on abortion and how it is portrayed in the media, but she refers to it as “heartbreaking” choice. Which is annoying, because it isn’t always heartbreaking, and she didn’t really allow for that understanding of abortion.

Is it worth reading? Hmmm. I think it could be fine for someone who is new to the topic and wants a super straightforward overview, but I wouldn’t go into it expecting a deeper analysis.

Meh. Nothing special.

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 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.

A smart, funny look at the commodification of feminism.

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley.)

Within a very short span of time, feminism has come to occupy perhaps its most complex role ever in American, if not global, culture. It’s a place where most of the problems that have necessitated feminist movements to begin with are still very much in place, but at the same time there’s a mainstream, celebrity, consumer embrace of feminism that positions it as a cool, fun, accessible identity that anyone can adopt. I’ve seen this called “pop feminism,” “feel-good feminism,” and “white feminism.” I call it marketplace feminism. It’s decontextualized. It’s depoliticized. And it’s probably feminism’s most popular iteration ever.

“The vote. The stay-at-home-dad. The push-up bra. The Lean Cuisine pizza.”

-- 4.5 stars --

When We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement first crossed my radar, I was intrigued but also worried; the book's description sounded like it could easily devolve into a chiding of Millennials by their older, second-wave sisters for not doing feminism right. (Think: Gloria Steinem's recent statement that young women's support of Bernie Sanders is merely a ploy to meet boys and get laid.) Then I saw that Andi Zeisler is the author, which mostly put my worries to bed: I'm a longtime subscriber of Bitch Magazine, which Zeisler co-founded, and it's pretty trenchant, on-point, and welcoming of diverse voices. As is We Were Feminists Once which, as it turns out, is a smart and funny look at the the commodification of feminism, both in recent times and historically.

Bolstered by capitalism and neoliberalist policies, "marketplace feminism" is the repackaging of feminism as something that's solely personal vs. political. This "feminism" is decontextualized and depoliticized, made soft and nonthreatening for mass consumption. It is a feminism "in service of capitalism." With an emphasis on personal choice as opposed to equality and liberation for all, this feminism asserts that all choices are equally valid; a choice is feminist as long as a self-proclaimed feminist (or any woman) is the one making it, as though the choice to wax one's body or take your husband's surname or even to marry at all is made in a vacuum. (Enter one of my favorite references: Charlotte York's desperate declaration, "I choose my choice!," upon quitting her beloved gallery job after marriage.) Values and ideology become so much products to pick and choose from, as if they were different brands of conditioner. Worst still, feminism itself is presented as a product in need of branding.

So we have feminism (and less threatening code words, such as liberation, empowerment, girl power, and choice) used to sell everything from cigarettes to yogurt, celebrities to thousand-dollar networking conferences. Companies like Estée Lauder and Revlon support cancer research through their charitable arms - while also pushing products that contain known carcinogens. Dove implores women to embrace their bodies through its Real Beauty campaign - and yet creates new problem areas to which they have conveniently devised a solution. (Soft armpits, really?) Perhaps the most egregious example comes from Walmart, which launched the Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative in 2012 - not long after the Supreme Court killed what would have been the largest-ever class-action sex discrimination lawsuit against the company. (If you want to "empower" women, Walmart, why not start with equal pay in your own damn company?)

Zeisler roughly structures the book around various forms of media: advertising, movies, television, celebrities, the news media, music, and the beauty industrial complex, with a fair degree of overlap. As a book nerd, I kind of wished she'd looked at feminism in fiction - especially given the proliferation of "strong female characters" in YA science fiction/fantasy - but I get why she didn't: these same concerns are mirrored in other forms of media.

While the scope of the topic is pretty large, she does a good job of distilling it down to its most essential parts, and providing timely and relevant examples. (If you're paying just a little attention, no doubt you're already familiar with many of the campaigns, products, and kerfuffles referenced in these here pages.) Despite the depressing nature of the subject, Zeisler's writing is witty, funny, and engaging. More than once I found myself snorting aloud.

It's also worth noting that, just as feminism is not only about the individual, Zeisler avoids laying the blame on individuals who make "unfeminist" choices (or celebs for their ill-informed riffs on feminism; "hating the player and ignoring the game," as it were). Getting a nose job, binge watching The Bachelor, or pursuing a modeling career doesn't make you a "bad feminist"; however, dismissing the context in which these choices are made and validated (or not) does mean you may be an uncritical thinker, at the very least.

As an ethical vegan, I can't help but compare the two: being vegan in a speciesist world, and being feminist when sexism and misogyny still run rampant. Given our limited choices, it's impossible to be 100% vegan, to avoid all animal-based products and exploitation altogether. Tires typically contain animal-based stearic acid; medications, including life-saving ones, are tested on animals; and those of us with companion animals must make the difficult choice between feeding them vegetarian, vegan, or omnivorous diets. So you do the best you can, trying to live in accordance with your values as closely as possible.

Likewise, Zeisler isn't asking us to give up potentially problematic entertainment, fashion choices, or hygienic practices. Do what makes you happy! Just do it through a critical feminist lens, and try to avoid trampling over other women in the process.

To this end, I do wish she'd offered some possible solutions. To be fair, the problem is so vast, it's hard to know where to start. Social media has proven a powerful platform for pushing back against sexism - as we see in some of Zeisler's examples - yet it often feels like a drop in the bucket.

For instance, Zeisler cites the hashtag campaign #abbiemillsdeservesbetter as a reason why Fox (supposedly) rethought its sidelining of Abbie Mills after the first season of Sleepy Hollow. Since she turned in the final draft of this book, however, Mills was killed off in the season three finale - to further the white, male MC's storyline, no less. Granted, it was Nicole Beharie's choice to leave the show - but only after being sidelined, mistreated, and marginalized by the writers and production team. She chose her choice, sure, but why and at what cost?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Part One: The New Embrace
1. The Corridors of Empower
2. Heroine Addicts: Feminism and Hollywood
3. Do These Underpants Make Me Look Feminist?
4. The Golden Age of (Feminist) TV
5. Our Beyoncés, Ourselves: Celebrity Feminism

Part Two: The Same Old Normal
6. Killer Waves
7. Empowering Down
8. The Rise of Big Woman
9. Creeping Beauty

Epilogue: The End of Feel-Good Feminism

http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/06/15/we-were-feminists-once-by-andi-zeisler/½

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 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

This book was only 400 pages long, but it took me something like eight months (or more - I can't remember the exact date I started reading the book) to finish it. But it wasn't because I didn't find the book interesting; instead, there's just a lot of information to ruminate over and digest. Most of these essays are least ten years old - some even older than that - so they can sometimes feel dated, but many are still relevant today, and nearly all of them were pretty darned interesting.

Satiating. Good to read, like bell hooks, just after a class in which a few loud students are insisting that feminists are merely man haters, and racism is a thing of the past.

some of the articles in the magazine itself are pretty out there. like, my little ponies teach little girls how to raise their humps and bat their big, dilated eyes. i'm not saying it's bad to question the toys we hand our kids, but still. the fare in the book is a bit more selective.

these collected articles tackle some pressing issues in just the ways i want them tackeled. for once.

Satiating. Good to read, like bell hooks, just after a class in which a few loud students are insisting that feminists are merely man haters, and racism is a thing of the past.

some of the articles in the magazine itself are pretty out there. like, my little ponies teach little girls how to raise their humps and bat their big, dilated eyes. i'm not saying it's bad to question the toys we hand our kids, but still. the fare in the book is a bit more selective.

these collected articles tackle some pressing issues in just the ways i want them tackeled. for once.

A great collection of essays from Bitch magazine, organized thematically.

Never really read the magazine except for maybe one issue. Gave me a lot to think about that I'm still kicking around. Would like to read more.

The easiest way to sum up my impression is that I'd never read the magazine when I started this book, and when I was done, I ordered a (prepaid) subscription. I've still read very little on feminism, so even the presumably standard stuff was novel. It was surprisingly not-angry, given the title. Most pieces were just wry, and unnervingly close to resigned. On the other hand, except for one bit in one chapter intro, everything was thoroughly rational and quotable. I particularly liked seeing some of my presumably more out-there views expressed; the ones I've never heard anyone share before. And I still love the bit "[apparently women] use their genitals only as sticky traps in which to catch wedding rings."½

Bitch is one of the smartest, funniest, broadest-minded feminist media forces I can think of. Because of the magazine format, these essays are concise and clearly written with the smart, savvy but not necessarily academic reader in mind, and never fail to push my thinking.

bitch: feminist response to pop culture is pretty much one of my favorite magazines evar. It is consistently thought-provoking and intelligent. It does not ignore issues of race and class, which I frequently find absent or superficially dealt with in feminist discourse. It's not glossy (except for the cover). It's not in color. There are no Calvin Klein ads, no thin women splayed out across two pages, selling perfume and shoes. Celebrities and models are never on the cover.

BITCHfest is divided up into 8 sections: Hitting Puberty; Ladies and Gentlemen: Femininity, Masculinity, and Identity; The F Word; Desire: Love, Sex, and Marketing; Domestic Arrangements; Beauty Myths and Body Projects; Confronting the Mainstream; and Talking Back: Activism and Pop Culture. Each section has approximately 4-7 essays. There were 1-3 outstanding ones per section. Obviously, not every article ever printed is in here. Hitting Puberty and Domestic Arrangements were my favorite sections. In the back there is an extensive list of resources, from websites to zines to writers.

It wasn't life-changing, but still very good. And it's nice to have so much Bitch in one volume and not have to dig through the aging, torn magazines I stack in haphazard piles.

articles on feminist cultural criticism

(98)