If It’s a ‘Woman’s World,’ Then Why Are You Leaving It, Katy Perry?

Perry is among the all-women crew headed to space on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket this spring.

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If It’s a ‘Woman’s World,’ Then Why Are You Leaving It, Katy Perry?

It brings me no joy to announce that the old adage “boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider” now unfortunately also applies to women. While not heading specifically to Jupiter, an all-woman crew including Katy Perry, Lauren Sanchez, and Gayle King are boarding oligarch Jeff Bezos’ next rocket mission to outer space.

The Blue Origin (Bezos’ space exploration company) mission launching this spring is the company’s 11th human flight into space and the first all-woman flight crew since Soviet Valentina Tereshkova’s solo mission in 1963. Also on board will be aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist and activist Amanda Nguyen (glad we have two pros tagging along), and film producer Kerianne Flynn, whose work on the 2024 film Lilly, about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, seemingly didn’t impact her feelings towards Bezos, one of the world’s — nay! universe’s! — biggest offenders of wage theft.

Sanchez, who is Bezos’ alive-girl fiancée, is the brain who “brought the mission together,” according to Blue Origin. In a front-facing Instagram video that is punctuated with the caption #takingupspace, Sanchez calls the group of women “storytellers” and emphasizes that she hopes this adventure “sparks their imagination to dream big.” The language around this mission is very 2010 millennial girl-boss core, which is annoying for a lot of reasons, but mainly because the day I see a group of men headed to outer space being called “storytellers,” I’ll eat my pink pussy hat.

 

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My trepidatious feelings about space travel aside, the decision to go on what is essentially a PR joyride for Jeff Bezos at this political moment is certainly a choice! I’m not really sure how one justifies their association with a man who, barely a month ago, lined up behind Trump at his inauguration and literally just yesterday told the Washington Post’s opinion section to solely focus on “personal liberties and free markets,” prompting the editor to resign. Specifically, I am curious how Katy Perry, the woman who lent her pitchy belts to every single Democratic presidential campaign in the last four election cycles, is rationalizing this little spin around the sun.

I suppose there’s nothing remarkable about Perry — who failed to turn the tragically stale “Woman’s World” into the song of summer 2024, or at the very least, a mainstay of Kamala Harris’ campaign playlist — attaching herself to outdated corporate feminism.  It just lays bare even clearer how hollow an anthem like that is. But with that in mind, I’d like her to publicly reckon with the lyrics:

It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be livin’ in it (uh-huh, uh-huh)You better celebrate‘Cause, baby, we ain’t goin’ away (oh)

Because it does seem as if she and this group of women are actually “goin’ away (oh)” as far as humanly possible from this woman’s world she loves so much. Anyways, what’s the over-under on her performing “E.T.” while orbiting around space? And who can get me a close-up cam of Gayle King’s reaction to it? Safe travels, I guess.

 
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