Rich Women Going To Space Isn’t Inspirational. It’s Dystopian.

Every single day lately I’m more and more convinced we are living in some sort of twisted, dystopian reality.

My TikTok feed has two distinct realities.

In one reality, people are talking incessantly about an impending recession and tariffs and the cost of groceries and the state of retirement accounts and rising rent costs and what they’re doing to cut corners and save money and on and on and on.

In the other reality, people are going on brand trips and taking monthly vacations with a never ending amount of swimsuits and spending the week at Coachella and doing luxury hauls and unboxings.

Let’s be clear. I’m not here to criticize influencers for going on brand trips or for their lifestyles, because influencers got bills to pay too, and we (the consumers) are still eating this type of content up so I will continue to blame the system, not the individuals. Because if the individuals hadn’t amassed hundreds of thousands of dedicated followers, there would be no market for them. I personally believe that we all have to use our follow button more discriminately, and quite frankly, do better at elevating folks who actually share our values.

Last week, The New York Times published an article entitled, “Are You the Only Who’s Broke? Or Is It ‘Money Dysmorphia’?” in which they posit the concept of money dysmorphia, which refers to people who have a distorted view of their own financial well being, particularly because for the first time in history, we can actively see how other folks are living, and for some, it can feel disconcerting.

A quick side note and reminder for us all that we have no idea of the state of someone’s finances by watching their lives on social media. For example, according to The Cut, nearly 60% of the 80,000 plus attendees at Coachella used a payment plan (such as Klarna or AfterPay) to purchase their tickets. That’s not to say that everyone is living fake lives on social media, but it’s a reality check that an overwhelming amount of our social media activities are actually just parasocial relationships. We don’t actually know these folks. We know what they want us to know about them.

But all that aside, it’s a weird, weird time.

And perhaps the weirdest thing I witnessed last week was the Blue Origin all female crew being launched into space as an historic event.

While the total cost of a ticket on this expedition isn’t fully known, the deposit is $150,000.00. In the US, less than a quarter of households make over $150K a year.

So watching celebrities such as Gayle King, Katy Perry, and Lauren Sánchez (the fiance of Jeff Bezos) going to space for funzies, behaving as though they did something groundbreaking, and then being surprised at the backlash is both baffling and comical. It’s also proof of the disconnect between the ultra rich and us regular folk. Because Katy Perry exited the space vessel following the 10 minute voyage as if she had just returned from a trip to the moon.

And in response to backlash, Gayle King, who was disappointed by people’s response said:

“Well you know. This is what bothers me because I’ve certainly read some of the things online. Some from people that I know. That I like. That I consider friends. And this is what I would say to that. Space is not an either/or. It’s a both/and. And because you do something in space, doesn’t mean you’re taking anything away from Earth. And what you’re doing in space is trying to make things better here on Earth. What Blue Origin wants to do is take the waste here and figure out a way to put it in space to make our planet cleaner. I mean Jeff Bezos has so many ideas and the people who are working there are really dedicated and devoted to making our planet a better place. Number 2, have you been? If you’ve been and you still feel that way after you’ve come back, please let’s have a conversation. Number 3, please don’t call it a ride. Whenever a man goes up, you have never said to an astronaut, wow, what a ride…..So I’m very disappointed and very saddened by it.”

She goes on to say more. Please feel free to check out the link above for the rest.

I know this wasn’t meant to be funny but I LOL’ed so hard because Gayle please be so serious. Have we been? No Gayle, we haven’t been because we don’t have $150K for the deposit and we most certainly don’t have the money to cover the balance of admission. So unfortunately, we will not be able to have a conversation with you afterwards.

Secondly, touting Jeff Bezos, a man with a net worth of $186 billion, whose company is actually doing real damage to the planet, as some sort of savior to Mother Earth is asinine.

And listen, I’m no scientist so maybe my concerns are invalid — if you are a scientist, please feel free to correct me on my ignorance — but ruining space with our trash sounds like a terrible idea. We have already polluted Earth so instead of working to lessen our carbon footprint — eliminating private jets for example — the solution is just to pollute space?

And finally, I don’t think the likes of Katy Perry, Lauren Sanchez and Gayle King should be compared to actual astronauts. They’re not astronauts or even scientists. They are simply people with enormous amounts of disposable income.

Gayle’s subtle nudge to misogyny being at play is just wrong in my opinion.

It’s not misogyny for women to refuse to embrace fake female empowerment, especially at the hands of celebrities and the ultra wealthy.

Because the marketing around the mission played up the historical significance of having an all-women crew for the first time in over 60 years and what it could do for representation in the space exploration field. However, as demonstrated in the tweet below, amidst the DEI initiative cuts in the federal government, this assertion is even more ridiculous.

In March, NASA dropped all mention of the first woman of color and person of color in space as well as deleting graphic novels about female astronauts from its website.

So no, it’s not misogyny. We are just refusing to buy into the bullshit. We aren’t easily distracted. We are refusing to embrace this blatant display of wealth under the guise of ‘feminism.’

At a time when the government is actively deporting (kidnapping to more accurate) people without due process, there are active genocides happening in multiple countries, and the leader of our country (for those of us in the US) is ignoring the Supreme Court, drawing our attention to rich women going to space isn’t exactly the hope we are all searching for.

Because to be honest, who cares if rich women can go to space when we are losing our reproductive rights?

When trans women are losing their rights.

When people don’t have the ability the to simply safely exist.

When the state of the country (and the world) is in complete disarray.

But hey, at least we can embrace our faux feminism and cheer on this huge accomplishment, am I right?

We can’t praise everything women do in the name of feminism.

Everything women do isn’t inspirational or aspirational just because it’s a woman doing them.

And criticizing women when they miss the mark isn’t by default, misogyny.

For example, JK Rowling is racist and transphobic, and I will publicly criticize her and the entire Harry Potter empire that made her a billionaire until the day I die, without an ounce of remorse. Because she deserves it.

Because feminism isn’t about fighting for the rights to demonstrate the same bad behavior as men without criticism.

True feminism is intersectional; it’s concerned about the issues of the most marginalized among us. It doesn’t seek to be celebrated for vain pursuits. It accepts accountability. It seeks collective liberation.

And it’s not doing those things, I’m not interested because we don’t need inspiration. We need liberation.

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