Bezos’ all-female space squad

[ItsCalledAConversation]

All for women breaking boundaries, representation matters, and all that.

But why for the love of god are all the publicity pictures showing these women in pancake makeup and bouffy blow dries, with the commitment shared that they will fly to space in “full glam”?

I’m really uncomfortable with the message this is partially sending. Yes women can go to space, but only if they look perfectly groomed?

Personally, I would have loved to see publicity pictures that focused on these women being serious and capable, not that their highest endeavour was bloody full glam.

And yes I know people can look nice and be clever, that’s not the point I’m making. Something about this feels regressive.

YABU = let them fly as high as their hair, I’m sure there are plugs for their straighteners aboard the Bezos rocket
YANBU = perfect looks don’t inspire future generations, surely there are better things to focus on than maintaining full glam in space

Why all woman?

well, as the rather lovely and acerbic women on Today pointed out:

-it's not space
-they are not astronauts and won't get astronaut wings
-this isn't "good for women" if the message is "to be an 'astronaut' you only have to be Jeff Besos' girlfriend or dance around in your knickers"

and why the heck are they trying to "sex" it up? talking about their space underwear? Tim Peake is very forthcoming on astronaut underwear "we wear adult nappies"

ooh didn’t listen to Today today (!) she’s right. This feels wrong on so many levels

this might appeal to certain young women and girls to get them interested in space and STEM.
I heard katy Perry talk about how she was using her downtime in the music studio to read about string theory, astronomy and ASTROLOGY then I thought on oh dear wouldn’t have mentioned astrology in this capacity.

I think this is all for the male gaze though.

It’s a bit like a hen do. It seems Barcelona was all booked out.

OP, I am so pleased to have found your post. This messaging around this whole thing is all wrong, not helped at all by the likes of Katy Perry and Lauren Sanchez. It’s making them all into a laughing stock and the PR pics are like something for a cable channel show. This could have been so different!

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat Maybe it’ll start and end like most hen dos - full glam to begin with - but everyone drunk, bedraggled and carrying their shoes by the end

@WinterMorn so glad I’m not the only one to feel perturbed by it. I wonder how many more of us feel the same way.

Lauren Sanchez designed the space suits. They are talking about putting the Ass into astronaut.

How has the world come to this?

Love the hen do analogy!

Add to that the rocket as a phallic symbol and and if that’s not a hen do I don’t know what is.

Yes, I feel the same. No problem if a woman astronaut wants to go full glam to go up into space but its the whole messaging of, "wooo, girls in space!" with nothing about it being aspirational. If she had wanted to go into space with some friends on a rocket funded by Amazon, fine. But stop all the "go girls!" messages. Being the fiancé of a man who makes a profit from restricting the working rights of employees isn't an aspirational achievement that needs to be celebrated as some sort of science first.

Completely agree with you OP. I only just read the bbc website article about it and straightaway the ‘doing it in full glam’ gave me the ick. There was more that annoyed me about it but previous posters have already expressed that better than I can so I won’t bang on about that, but yeah - it’s all a bit “ooh look, pretty ladies can go into space too!”
And that stupid statement by Perry, something about showing that “no matter who you are, how educated you are, how rich or poor you are, you can be and do anything you want” stuff was just cringe. No you can’t. Not in real life, unfortunately. And having some massively privileged wealthy woman try to say otherwise just because she gets to sit in a rocket in full makeup isn’t going to change that.

It has really annoyed me. There are many women astronauts and cosmonauts who have devoted their lives to careers in space research and we hear more about this (largely) vacuous bunch, some of whom seem to be primarily concerned about what sort of undies to wear under their bodycon suits. I don't like space tourism anyway and this lot are the worst possible advert for it.

Nearing the end of her (one woman, 3 day mission) Valentina Tereshkova had to work with ground crew on a new algorithm to sort a software glitch that could have ended in disaster and her death. She was then ejected from the capsule and parachuted 20 000 feet to landing. I wonder how Lauren, Gayle and Katy would feel about having a stab at that.

ETA many edits because many typos!

I agree the optics are terrible but these women are not going into space in the proper sense, they are just tourists on a flight that goes to a higher altitude than most people ever will be on. There's nothing of merit in this sort of "mission" other than as a necessary part of the process of advancing space travel in general.

By that I mean this particular mission is of no benefit in itself but from time to time these journeys will fail catastrophically and when they do lessons will be learnt to make future journeys safer. Better to lose the vehicle with a few passengers today if it means thousands of passengers are safer in the future.

The passengers are only there to generate publicity and attract business to the operator. I guess it's a win/win regardless of outcome. If the mission is completed safely, which is probably in the high 90 per cent range, it's good publicity. Even if there is a disaster and the vehicle is destroyed with the loss of all the passengers, it's not necessarily "bad" for the company because although questions will be asked the investigation will ultimately lead to advances in safety and therefore improved future revenue.

Like I say the chances of death are single figure percentages at most. The important thing though is this mission will generate profit, in the short and long term, regardless of outcome.

It's infantilising bollocks. Full make up and spandex 'space suits'. Space travel for the male gaze.

This waste and environmental cost of this publicity stunt grinds my gears, to put it mildly.

Fiddling while the world burns, fuck them.

They are not even "going into space" really. They are going to the "edge of space" (whatever that means - I know nothing about space) and the flight will last for 11 minutes! You just have to ask what's the point? I've just seen Katy Perry being interviewed on the news. She gave the impression that she didn't really know what the point was either but she did use a hell of a lot of buzz words.

Sally on BBC Breakfast this morning asked who was going to drive it. WTAF?

It's giving me strong Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy vibes: that Golgafrincham Ark Ship full of telephone sanitisers, account managers, pointless middle men, etc, who were blasted off into space supposedly to 'colonise a new civilisation' but in reality to thin out the herd of mediocrity on the home planet.

"drive"? omg

I heard this interview! She was great.

I laughed outloud at her using the phrase " dance around in your knickers" because I've often been heard to ask, in all seriousness, why women singers these days are expected to perform in their knickers.

I agree that this space "mission" is a step backwards for feminism and a publicity stunt that once again undermines women who are making real contributions in fields previously seen as male domains.
And so sad space is now seen as yet another playground for the rich.

I saw that their suits are ‘made for the female figure’. Thank goodness. Now I might consider a career as an astronaut. It’s beyond ridiculous and quite insulting to women in the field.

DD and I were just discussing this. It's patronising and a bit belittling to see them comparing themselves to actual female astronauts. Coincidentally, I watched a film called Hidden Figures last night, about the African American, female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the space race - that was an impressive watch.

I don't have strong feelings either way but no one is seeing this and thinking you can only go into space if you're perfectly groomed, give women some credit.

That's daft, we had months of seeing Suni Williams actually being an astronaut, we all know it's not about how you look

I think their intense preparation for this epic voyage has primarily involved watching Star Trek: Voyager and deciding to try to channel 7 of 9.