The Blue Origin flight that launched an all-female crew into space earlier this week has faced an astronomical level of criticism, with many rejecting the notion that the mission was a win for women’s empowerment.
The fully-automated 11-minute flight that blasted off from West Texas on Monday had quite the star power, with six prominent women in various fields aboard: journalist Gayle King; helicopter pilot and former TV journalist Lauren Sanchez; pop star Katy Perry; film producer Kerianne Flynn; former NASA engineer Aisha Bowe; and Amanda Nguyen, an astronaut and civil rights activist.
In the months leading up to the flight, some of the promotion and interviews with the Blue Origin crew celebrated the flight as a win for women and feminism. The launch marked the first time an all-female crew took a spaceflight since 1963, when Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova launched by herself, becoming the first woman in space.
Sanchez said in a March video shared on Instagram ahead of the flight that she believed that all of the women in the crew are “storytellers.”
“They’re going to come back, and be able to share that story and also inspire a new generation of explorers,” she said, adding the hashtag “#Takingupspace.”
Perry told The Associated Press last week that she felt “brave” and “bold” for inspiring the “next generation,” and “especially young girls,” to go to space in the future and to have “no limitations.”
And amid the backlash that the quick flight from the space tourism company founded by Jeff Bezos — Sanchez’s fiancée and one of the richest men in the world — was self-promotional, costly and extremely out-of-touch, among other things, some of the crew have stood by the message of inspiring young girls.
King told Extra on Tuesday that despite the criticism, she’s had “so many girls and women — and some guys,” tell her that they were inspired by the Blue Origin flight.
“I know there are some haters, but I’m not going to let people steal my joy. And steal the joy of what we did and what we accomplished that day. I’m just not going to let it in,” the “CBS Mornings” co-host said.
But many people haven’t been convinced that this flight was a triumph for women’s causes, slamming it as a privileged celebrity affair — perhaps save for scientists Bowe and Nguyen, who conducted experiments during the spaceflight.
Namely, many have argued that Bezos’ ties to President Donald Trump are in direct opposition to the flight’s purported celebration of feminism. In December, it was reported that Amazon, founded by Bezos, had planned to donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund — and Bezos and Sanchez were memorably given front-row seats at the inauguration.
Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai attend the inauguration of Donald J. Trump in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2025.
Trump has led a crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion, and his administration’s various funding cuts will have serious implications for women and girls across the globe. Just earlier this month, the administration gutted a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reproductive health division that monitors in vitro fertilization and tracks national maternal and infant health outcomes.
So while representation is important, it’s crucial to remember that “tokenism” can “give a false impression of inclusion,” explained Susan Hinze, associate professor of sociology and women’s and gender studies at Case Western Reserve University.
“Representation matters. Given the gender gap in space, anything that moves the needle toward equality is a win. Indeed, the stunt may prove inspirational for some young women,” she told HuffPost. But she added that some of the crew members were chosen not because “they are trained astronauts,” but for publicity for Blue Origin.
“In organizations, tokenism is the inclusion of a few underrepresented minorities to give a false impression of inclusion,” she said. “If visibility and representation are important, why not select a group of women scientists and educators as the role models instead of (mostly) celebrities ready for their close-ups with glam squads and an Elle magazine photoshoot?”
The Blue Origin flight launched an all-female crew into space on Monday, April 14, 2025, in West Texas. The crew consisted of Gayle King, Lauren Sanchez, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn, Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen.
Read on to hear more from experts in women’s and gender studies on why they believe the feminist messaging behind the Blue Origin flight fell flat for so many.
Platitudes about women’s empowerment distract from how systems of power can cause harm.
“‘Dreaming big and reaching for the stars’ are platitudes that reinforce individualistic ideologies and ignore the weight of classist, racist and sexist systems of power that keep people from succeeding,” Hinze said, describing much of the marketing leading up to the Blue Origin flight as a cringey “stunt.”
“Here on planet Earth and in the U.S., public education is under attack and may not survive. Where are our future scientists?” she later said. “Possibly sitting in underfunded classrooms as the wealthy send their kids to private schools and advocate for a for-profit educational system of charter schools. The next Marie Curie or Mae Jemison could be lost to us forever.”
Jillana Enteen, professor of instruction in gender and sexuality studies at Northwestern University, said that it’s also important to analyze the “ludicrousness of the branding” of the Blue Origin flight in the context of the “current funding cuts occurring across institutions of higher education.”
“Universities are being told they cannot focus on topics centered around women, people of color, or anyone in gendered/sexual non-normative positions, but this flight certainly uses the theme as its main attraction,” she said.
She later added, “Blue Origin enables passengers, not astronauts, to have an experience, not an education.”
Enteen, who teaches a course on digital humanities, said that she’s heard from a number of her undergraduate students criticize the feminist branding attached to the Blue Origin flight. One student told her they thought it was “a display of wealth instead of the power of women.”
Another student thought, however, that some of the criticism slamming the all-female crew for talking publicly about getting glammed up for the spaceflight was “ironically” anti-feminist in itself. Enteen agreed that there has been “inconsistencies” in the backlash and criticism toward the flight.
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Overall, Hinze said that she believes much of the negative response to the Blue Origin flight and the way it was marketed is because “women are tired of being had.”
“Most women see right through the charade of empowerment presented in this stunt for public consumption. Women want equal rights, equal treatment, and equal opportunities, not objectification and performative nonsense,” she said. “The world feels precarious right now, and yes, the frustration is boiling over, especially around the economy and politics.”
She added: “White billionaire men using women to showcase their technological prowess … is completely cringe.”
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