Tyler asked Andi Zeisler:

The aggressive marketing of the book (thinking the emails lately) and its nature as a bonafide commodity seem contradictory to the main claim of the book. The book seems to be enthusiastically performing the main object of its critique, the commodification of feminism. How do you reckon the book's own status as a commodity? Where do the profits go for the book? Do you address this in your argument? Thanks!

Andi Zeisler This is a good question. I've definitely considered that writing and marketing and book about commodified feminism invites a critique about doing the very thing that I'm critiquing. I do think there's a significant difference between a book like WWFO and, say, a brand like Dove that makes money for its parent company by using "empowerment" to market products to women. I'm not attempting to sell women on their consumer empowerment through products or identities, but rather asking us all to think critically about why it's so much easier to commodify an attractive, depoliticized feminism than to address it at a systemic level.

(And to your question about profits, some of them will go toward Bitch Media, the nonprofit media organization I cofounded and continue to work for. Bitch has existed for more than 20 years independent of media revenue streams of advertising and venture capital—it's a reader-supported organization.)

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