How Capitalism uses Neoliberal Feminism and Commodity Activism

As time goes on, and capitalism gains enemies and critiques against the systems that maintain and uphold it; It begins to attempt to commodify and otherwise alter those critiques in a way that ensures it will be able to survive and theoretically outlive them. In this same way, feminism has become an enemy of capitalism by questioning and criticizing the patriarchal systems of power which uphold it. Following suit, capitalism has attempted to assimilate feminism into itself by creating Neo-liberal Feminism, a version of feminism whose values closely align with capitalism’s. In the article “Post Feminism, Popular Feminism, and Neoliberal Feminism? Sarah Banet-Weiser, Rosalind Gill, and Catherine Rottenburg in conversation” Rottenburg states, “Neoliberal feminism thus operates as a kind of pushback to the total conversion of educated and upwardly mobile women into generic human capital…maintaining reproduction as part of middle-class or so-called aspirational women’s normative trajectory and positing balance as its normative frame and ultimate ideal…” (pg 8) Rottenburg is saying that Neoliberal feminism is a retaliatory ideology which paradoxically seeks to maintain womanhood and femininity’s association with reproduction while balancing the conversion of everything into capital. Rottenburg also says, “And while it might acknowledge that the gendered wage gap and sexual harassment are signs of continued gender inequality, the solutions it posits elide the structural or economic undergirding of these phenomena.” (pg 8) Rottenburg explains that this version of feminism is very milquetoast, very cowardly, it doesn’t create solutions to the real issues of patriarchal systems in society; It only creates solutions that look good on advertisements and to the uninformed. This is the reason that neoliberal feminism is so appealing to capitalism, it’s just for show! Using neoliberal feminism allows capitalism to do performative actions, which they claim signifies that they care about the real issues, when in reality they don’t care whatsoever. They only care about these issues to make their products look more appealing. Neoliberal feminism allows capitalism to turn feminism into their next big selling product, their next fancy advertising campaign, the next popular thing they can use to generate more profit.

One of the greatest tools that capitalism uses to do this performative version of feminism is commodity activism. In another article by Sarah Banet-Weiser, “Nike, Colin Kaepernick, and the history of ‘commodity activism’ ”, Banet-Weiser defines commodity activism stating, “This practice merges consumer behavior with political or social goals… Individual consumers act politically by purchasing particular brands over others in a competitive marketplace, where specific brands are attached to political aims and goals.” (pg 2) Marketing agencies touch on current political issues, and try to claim that by purchasing from a specific company, you are showing your political ideologies and alignments. There definitely are reasons to choose one product over another, for instance buying a specific brand of chocolate bar that doesn’t use slave labor or not buying products from a certain company because of a union strike. However, when commodity activism is used as a marketing strategy it’s primarily toothless. Companies will typically do the bare minimum, so they can claim that they care about a specific issue while they don’t actually care. For example, Subaru’s share the love event where they donate $250 per car sold in select dealerships. In 2022 Subaru donated 2.3 million dollars to the ASPCA, but they made around 4 billion dollars in profit! If they really cared about the ASPCA’s goals they could stand to donate a lot more! This is a general example of commodity activism considering they marketed it by saying that buying a Subaru helped the ASPCA, and indirectly implying that buying a Subaru would show that you care about the ASPCA’s goals.

An excellent example of how commodity activism is used alongside neoliberal feminism is in Rachelle L. Pavelko and Cory Barker’s article “It Really Works! Qualitative Content Analysis of Multilevel Marketing Organizations’ Online Promotional Messaging and Recruitment Strategies” which analyzes the recruitment and marketing strategies used by multilevel marketing organizations, also known as MLMs, that heavily rely on commodity activism and neoliberal feminism. MLMs are businesses which operate as pyramid schemes, they serve to make the people at the top the most money while leaving those at the bottom with next to nothing. Pavelko and Barker define the insidious nature of MLMs by stating, “…distributors are often required to buy a certain amount of inventory at regular intervals regardless of whether they can sell it all…also require distributors to pay additional fees for training sessions or educational materials…pyramid schemes directly tie distributors’ compensation to their ability to recruit new members…” (pg 3) By requiring new employees to buy new stock regardless of their ability to pay for it, these new employees need to bring in as many people as possible to they can afford the next shipment. As bad enough as that is, MLMs typically target the poor women, who can’t get a job or are underpaid in their current line of work, as their main sales targets and where to recruit from. MLMs tout their large percentage of women working in the industry as a sign of their progressiveness and commitment to women’s rights, despite their blatant exploitation. In this way they are exemplifying neoliberal feminism, using vaguely feminist ideology to bring women into the neoliberal capitalist system. In a direct contradiction of the feminist ideology they claim to preach, the imagery they use on their websites encourages hetero-patriarchal ideals. As stated by Pavelko and Barker, “It also constructs an underlying heteronormative vision for gender, with women associated with beauty and physical appearance and men associated with leadership and scientific ingenuity.” (pg 11) By using exclusively women to demonstrate who would sell and use the products, and exclusively men to demonstrate who runs the upper management and who creates the products, these MLMs are promoting hetero-patriarchal stereotypes.

The language used to promote the MLMs and recruit women to them also exemplifies neoliberal feminist ideology, “…that plays on a stereotypical trade-off facing modern women: working as much as possible to support their families or serving as an aspirational, hands-on mother. MLMs promise, then, that joining the organization will allow women to avoid that false trade-off and have it all.” (Pavelko and Barker, pg 12) As earlier defined, neoliberal feminism strives to keep women responsible for family care and housework while promoting capitalist business aspirations. One of the most egregious examples of MLMs commodity activism marketing strategies is demonstrated here, “Similarly, the Younique Foundation aims to provide sexual assault survivors and their families with resources and a safe space to find community. Here again, the companies centered the experiences of women—as victims, survivors, and mothers—to promote their activist brand images.” (Pavelko and Barker, pg 12) These MLMs are exploiting women once again for the sake of profit by using women’s suffering as their marketing strategy.

What I find most insidious about neoliberal feminism, and it’s utilization of commodity activism is how performative it all is. At the end of the day, neoliberal feminism serves to convince women of the idea that feminism has done what it needs to and that any difficulty they find managing the world is an individual failing. Neoliberal feminism will use this performative commodity activism to claim that it cares about these issues, that it cares about the injustices that women deal with every day, and that it cares and wants to help, but it doesn’t and never will. All it wants is to advance capitalism and push aside any idea of social and societal reform to remove the patriarchal systems of power that support the capitalist economy. MLMs in particular are the epitome of these neoliberal and capitalist ideals put into action. They exploit vulnerable women with promises of financial autonomy and independence when all they give is debt and suffering. It’s really quite frustrating to me.

I hope that you enjoyed this article. I would highly recommend reading the articles from Sarah Bernet-Wiser, and Rachelle L. Pavelko and Cory Barker’s article, as all of them were quite interesting. In particular, I found the neoliberal feminism conversation article the most interesting, despite it being a bit difficult to parse.

How Capitalism uses Neoliberal Feminism and Commodity Activism

Works Cited