Blue Origin all-female flight: one giant leap back for womankind?

An all-female crew has journeyed to the edge of space for the first time in 60 years. But, while Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was showered with praise for her solo mission in 1963, the women on this week's Blue Origin flight have attracted almost universal criticism. The 11-minute trip was a "morally vacuous" stunt for Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company owned by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, said Jessica Grose in The New York Times. The six women aboard included pop star Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sánchez. Perry said the flight would encourage young girls to go into space "without limitations" but it was "anything but a boost for feminism", said Jawad Iqbal in The Spectator.

'Self-indulgent and pointless'

The flight was "touted" as a "win for science" and a "triumph of feminism" but was instead a "perverse funeral for the America that once enabled both scientific advancement and feminist progress", said Moira Donegan in The Guardian. The crew's pre-flight promotion "leaned heavily" on women’s empowerment but was "light on substance" and "heavy on a childlike, girlish silliness", with Perry saying they were putting "the 'ass' into astronaut", and other crew members only interested in "talking about their makeup and hair". The crew did include aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe and bioastronautics researcher and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, alongside Perry, Sánchez, film producer Kerianne Flynne and TV presenter Gayle King. But it is clear that these women "in their Monse-designed suits and fresh blow-waves" were "handpicked" purely to "show off what Blue Origin can do for its customers", said Rebecca Mitchell at Marie Claire. And as for women going into space "without limitations"? Yes, but only as long as they are "rich, famous or happen to be on close terms with a billionaire", said The Spectator's Iqbal. This will "surely go down in history" as the "most self-indulgent and pointless trip into space. Ever."

'Profoundly antifeminist'

For these women, "nothing is at stake and nothing ever has to change", so "concepts like empowerment" have "no material reality", said Vrinda Jagota in Pitchfork. The "issues women face on Earth are an afterthought" to all those involved. Any hope that "celebrity feminism could rub off in some way on the larger culture" has now gone, said Grose in The New York Times. "Trickle-down feminism" has been "snuffed out by the reality of celebrity behaviour". In fact, the Blue Origin crew have "presented a profoundly antifeminist vision" of womankind's future, said The Guardian's Donegan – one that is "dependent on men, confined to triviality, and deeply, deeply silly".