April 14 2025 marked the launch of the Blue Origin rocket, seeing the first female-only crew since 1963, on an 11-minute mission into space. This included Katy Perry, Lauren Sanchez, Aisha Bowe, Gayle King, Amanda Nguyen, and Kerianna Flynn. Sanchez, fiancée to the founder of Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos), claimed that this was a step towards making space more accessible, expressing her urge to the BBC, to ‘protect the planet’.
Aboard was Katy Perry, captured holding a daisy to the camera for her daughter Daisy, while Bowe waved a Bahamas flag, as the first woman from her country to travel into space. The mission was clear: display the leaps and bounds of progress made by not only the planet and women, but by humankind as a whole. So why did the mission receive so much backlash, almost immediately?
The pop star, Katy Perry, received particularly negative feedback on the mission, with commentators in an uproar about the profligacy of the 11-minute spectacle. TikTok became one of the main outlets for this anger, with people expressing their disappointment in the company’s choice to fund the space mission over urgent humanitarian or social projects.
Strong concerns were voiced on the harmful impact of such a mission on the environment, due to the large-scale emission of carbon dioxide amidst an urgent climate crisis. Many critics also pointed out the irony of Bezos’ fiancé admitting a care for the planet, despite this being an extremely environmentally unfriendly project, on behalf of a founder who significantly contributes towards global greenhouse gas emissions.
However, another issue arises when inspecting Blue Origin’s marketing tactics beyond very real climate concerns. While an all-female crew in space simulates a level of progress, it misrepresents the reality of sexism across the globe. The suggestion is that this women-only mission represents progress for feminism worldwide. It does not. Yes, it is true that several decades ago, a mission like this would have been unimaginable. However, to insinuate that this spectacle represents a leap forward in championing gender equality reflects a fundamental ignorance of the inequalities experienced both internationally and internally. In reality, today, only a very select group of women can go to space – women with status, wealth, and the ‘right connections’.
Sending an all-female crew into space does not necessarily represent steps forward for the feminist movement; one which should be aiming for universal progression of women’s rights. Instead, it is more a reflection of how class continues to dominate global politics and the media. A working-class female is still far less likely to board a spacecraft than her male counterpart, and that is without considering other factors such as parenthood, cultural background or access to education, to name a few. Gender and class inequalities remain an extremely pressing issue.
The question remains: how do we move forward? Hatred gets us nowhere. People have already relayed their concerns, and to see positive change, we now need to continue to take action to ensure these issues are recognised and addressed, rather than overlooked. Pitting women against each other is not the answer, nor is faulting the engineers who built the rocket.
The first step is to recognise the impact of collective action and raise awareness about the damage this kind of project causes, and the environmental and social harms it risks exacerbating. This spectacle should be seen as nothing more than a marketing stunt, designed to co-opt the feminist movement, casting a faux-progressive veneer over a televised PR opportunity, ultimately serving one of the world’s richest people as he promotes space tourism not to women, but the global elite.
Profligate technological development is not a sign of prosperity for our species when there are people in parts of the world working for $1 a day, lacking basic resources for survival. We need to hear from those experiencing the environmental consequences of the West’s destructive projects, and educate people to scrutinise the actions of the ultra-wealthy. Maybe this was the wake-up call we needed to show that, actually, we are not as developed or switched-on as we thought.
