Feminism, a movement created over a century ago, has had different dynamics over the past 100 years. Co-founder of feminist website Bitch Media, Andi Zeisler, spoke at Lumina Theater on Sept. 28 about present day feminism, or in her words, marketplace feminism.

“Marketplace feminism is the process of harnessing and celebrating the language, the imagery and the energy of the feminist movement while depoliticizing and detextualizing it,” Zeisler said.

Writing for Bitch Media since 1996, Zeisler has seen feminism change and evolve over the past 20 years. Although feminism has been called corporate feminism, commodity feminism and commodity fetishism in the past, Zeisler explained that marketplace feminism is today’s modern day feminism.

“I chose the name ‘marketplace feminism’ because it’s slightly more specific. It involves the idea of picking and choosing, taking on the parts or ideology that appeal to you and ignoring those that don’t,” Zeisler said. 

Zeisler spoke about different companies that use feminism in their ads to promote their products, such as Dove and Secret deodorants. Dove has a campaign that has been running for over 12 years, showing off women with all different body types instead of just the typical skinny model so often seen on screen. Secret ran an ad about a girl who was nervous about asking her boss for a raise, but using Secret deodorant, helped the ‘ultimate stress test’ on closing the wage gap.

“It’s feminism as a brand, it is something that is engineered to appeal to as large a number of people as possible, with a message that is clean and simple and uncomplicated,” Zeisler said.

Zeisler displayed quotes on the Lumina movie screen from celebrities such as Beyoncé, Shay Mitchell, and Emma Watson about what they believed feminism was. Zeisler says that celebrities talk about feminism as a “life choice” and create their own personal meaning.

“It’s about individualism, it’s not about a philosophy, it’s not about an ethic, it’s not about a political movement. People sort of choose their own definition,” Zeisler said. “Understand feminism not as a movement for the liberation of all women, but as kind of a tool for personal self actualization, like a crystal or a mantra.”

Zeisler believes that today’s marketplace feminism, or the individualism that feminism has become, is not the true meaning.

“What we don’t talk about is structural transformation and that is what feminism is really about,” Zeisler said.