The paperback version of We Were Feminists Once by Bitch Co-Founder, Andi Zeisler, is here!
Feminism has hit the big time. 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, cofounder 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.
Reviews:
“A fun, funny, deeply learned book that is too clever to come to a simple conclusion.” -New York Times
“Spirited, witty, and ferociously incisive.” -Kirkus Reviews
“With delightfully dry wit, Zeisler carries the discussion of the portrayal of women in advertising, movies, television, and fashion both in the present day and recent history. …This thought-provoking yet sobering consideration of the current state of feminism emphasizes the need to continue to fight for full equality.” –Library Journal, Editors’ Spring Pick 2016“
“Engaging, smart and provocative, We Were Feminists Once challenges us to take on the gap between glitzy media appropriations of feminism and the significant unfinished business of the women’s movement.” –Susan J. Douglas, award-winning author of Where the Girls Are and Enlightened Sexism
