For much of my post-teen life, I’ve been getting conflicting messages about how to Do Feminism Right. Do I wear heels? Do I never wear heels? Do I Lean In? Do I Lean Out? Do I take Fat Joe’s advice and Lean Back? Do I cover my body? Flaunt it? Do I have opinions on other cultures that require women to cover themselves? Do I just shut up about all that stuff and let other people handle it? Use words like “mother goddess” in everyday conversation? Have sex with everyone? Have sex with no one? Have sex with women only? Do I get married? Do I hate men forever? Do I feel really pretty and confident all the time without makeup!!! but have difficulty locating various African countries on a map?
Thankfully, through a combination of weed-addled college discussions and Tumblr fights (and later, thousands of competing Tweetstorms), I realized that media and culture have come to the tepid consensus that feminism is really about choices. It’s about everyone doing whatever the fuck they want and then twirling in the middle of a London street during a rainstorm while an upbeat Aretha Franklin song plays. It’s about getting a standing ovation while standing behind a podium, grinning widely from behind a dangling tassel. It’s about attending benefits in snappy pantsuits and photo opportunities with Hillary Clinton. It’s about HAVING IT ALL. And now, according to Jessica Bennett’s most recent piece in the New York Times, modern feminism has made way for Conference Feminism, expensive and occasionally exclusive conferences where the OG’s of Feminism, the ones who are on news magazine shows talking about feminism and writing books about feminism and founding magazines about feminism, get together to talk about feminism. Bennett writes,
What were once grass-roots gatherings have become commercial enterprises: star-studded events with corporate sponsors like Toyota and Walmart.
“It’s the formation of a new girls’ club,” said Morra Aarons-Mele, a marketing consultant who advises companies on connecting with women. (She was speaking by phone, naturally, from a conference for female philanthropists.) “I mean, no offense, but men have been doing this kind of conference networking for years.”
While spaces for women to connect and network are by no means a bad thing, the prohibitive costs surrounding these corporate-sponsored, star-studded conventions, seen as must-attends for people who want to rub elbows with the most powerful women in the world, is. Just how much would it cost to attend all of the big feminist-ish women’s networking events and thus WIN FEMINISM? Let’s find out.
Makers
What is it? Fancy ladies talking about banning Bossy.
Who does it? AOL and PBS
How much will it set you back? $Infinity dollars. You have to be invited.