Long before the current boom in online spaces focused on feminist-informed pop culture criticism, Portland’s Andi Zeisler co-founded Bitch Media, setting the tone for future blogs like Jezebel and the Hairpin. (Full disclosure: I have written for Bitch.) Zeisler’s latest book, We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement, explores marketplace feminism, which Zeisler defines as co-opting “the language and the imagery and the associations of feminism… in the service of capitalism, while not necessarily doing anything that substantial or transformative with the issues that are still really crucial for feminists and for gender equality.” It’s a consequence of feminism’s ubiquity, sea changes in media, and advertisers’ realization that the appearance of feminism can move product. Here’s what Zeisler told me about marketplace feminism, progressive media, and better things to talk about than whether or not Taylor Swift or Beyoncé are “really” feminists.
MERCURY: I’m wondering if you could speak to how marketplace feminism is enabled by a shallow, hot-take news cycle.
ANDI ZEISLER: A lot of marketplace feminism has really come about because the economics of media have changed so much. There’s so much more media, there’s so many more content producers, and there’s definitely a dearth of original—and certainly analytical—reporting. So what we have is a bunch of content producers… all competing for very similar audiences.