Feminism isn’t what we consume, it’s what we practise and fight for

Consider the language of beauty advertising. Try this shampoo to make your hair shinier and silkier and express yourself more confidently. Spritz on this fragrance to make men notice you. Buy this makeup to hide how tired you are and achieve flawless beauty, rather than asking why you are so burned out in the first place. Buy our product to run as fast as a man!

Apparently, empowerment is just one purchase away.

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How often do we come across advertisements that promise women empowerment through a product, a makeover, or a crafted, catchy slogan? From billboards to social media campaigns, feminist language has increasingly become part of marketing. But beneath these catchy slogans and promises of confidence, what are we really being sold? Is it empowerment or are we simply being given new ways to feel inadequate, insecure and in need of another product? Behind these empowering messages often lie the same standards of femininity that feminism has long questioned and challenged.

Often, the women featured in these advertisements are popular models; polished, confident, and financially capable of consuming the products being promoted. But how different is their journey from that of a woman living in a rural community, struggling to access even basic necessities? More importantly, who are these messages actually targeting and reaching? Are they reaching the women who are looking for empowerment, or are they speaking primarily to those who have the means to consume the product being advertised?

American sociologist Goldman and his colleagues in a paper published in 1991 used the term commodity feminism to describe how feminist discourse can be redirected through mass media and transformed into marketable signs attached to brands and commodities. This is particularly visible and relatable in today’s consumer culture. For instance- a woman can supposedly become more confident by buying the right clothes. Sure, but do these messages acknowledge how underpaid the women are who work day and night to produce these clothes in a garment factory? We are encouraged to use the right anti-aging cosmetics or makeup products to conceal the imperfections, but why do we not question why women are punished or judged for growing older? The obsession with women’s beauty is not something new in society. However, the way brands are feeding and selling this obsession to us in a packaged form calls for attention and scrutiny. The contrast between “you are powerful” but “you need to look a certain way to be taken seriously” is striking. An advertisement may tell a woman that she is powerful and independent while simultaneously suggesting that she needs smoother skin, shinier hair, a slimmer waist, or a more attractive appearance to be valued, heard, and taken as seriously as the men around her.

Feminist language has undeniable appeal because words such as confidence, independence, equality, and empowerment carry personal, political, and emotional weight. Brands understand this. By associating themselves with these ideas and often pairing them with catchy music and polished visuals, they can position a product as more than a commodity. Buying it can begin to feel like an expression of identity or even a small act of liberation. But empowerment is not the same as feeling good, and it is certainly not the same as overconsumption.

A campaign celebrating women’s confidence does not necessarily address gender-based violence. A product marketed around women’s independence does not automatically challenge unequal wages, unpaid care work, discrimination, barriers to education, or the oppression that women face across the world. A brand can celebrate “strong women” while leaving the structural conditions that limit millions of women entirely untouched. Hashtag feminism has increasingly become part of advertising, with brands using social-media campaigns to market ideas of female empowerment.

There is also a question of class disparity. Who can afford to participate in this supposed version of feminism? If empowerment is increasingly communicated through products, lifestyles, and experiences, then access to empowerment risks becoming a privilege. The woman who cannot afford these products is not less deserving of confidence, dignity, or equality. Yet consumer culture can subtly suggest that she is missing something. It can also create an “us” versus “them,” where the “us” is presented as more culturally refined, educated, modern, and sophisticated, while the “others” are portrayed as backward, less modern, or not as capable. In that sense, consumer feminism may reinforce the very social divisions that feminism seeks to challenge.

None of this means that women should not enjoy beauty products, fashion, or self-care. Consumption and feminism do not have to be opposites. The problem begins when purchasing is presented as a substitute for political and social change.

We need to become more discerning and critical about the feminism we encounter in advertisements and on social media. Is a brand genuinely engaging with gender inequality, or is it simply using feminist language to sell us another product? Feminism cannot be reduced to a slogan on a billboard, a hashtag on Instagram, or a product on a shelf. Real empowerment requires confronting inequalities beyond the marketplace and addressing them from the grassroots level.

It is high time we learn to distinguish between feminism that challenges inequality and marketing strategies that simply know how to package and sell it. Because when feminism becomes too advertising-friendly, we risk confusing visibility with progress and consumption with empowerment. We celebrate the campaign, share the slogan, buy the product and perhaps feel that we have participated in something meaningful. But what changes when the advertisement ends?

If feminism becomes something we consume rather than something we practice, question, and fight for, then we may be buying the language of liberation while leaving the structures of oppression untouched. The real measure of empowerment is not what we are persuaded to buy, but what women are free to become, access, demand, and change.

Adrita Islam is a lecturer of political science and streaming media culture and a part-time news anchor. She can be reached at adrita027@gmail.com.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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