Not Every Man is a Patriarch. Not Every Patriarch is a Man.
I talk a lot about how personal beauty is used as a marketing tool by The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand.
Everyone’s gonna think I have a problem with that because I’m jealous. Because I’m fat.
Nope. That’s not it.
Here’s the deal: cultural standards around beauty aren’t even about being beautiful. They’re about signalling privilege and access to resources.
If you are thin and white and elaborately maintained and wear Gucci boots and do “business” photo-shoots in front of the Eiffel Tower, you’re not signalling “beauty”, you’re signalling privilege. You’re signalling wealth. You’re signalling immunity and power and luxury. That’s what people want from you. They want what you have, not who you are. It’s not even *really* about beauty. It’s about allegiance to a system that rewarded you. It’s telling other people that the system worked for you because you’re exceptional and maybe it can work for them, too.
It can work for the exceptions.
That’s how patriarchy works. A few at the top, the rest below. Not every man is a patriarch. Not every patriarch is a man.
That’s what The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand is about: exceptionalism. It’s not about collective empowerment or changing things and opening more opportunities and more choices to more women. It’s about showing a few exceptions-to-the-rule how to maneuver in the existing system to get yours and yours alone.
IF you fit the mold.
Who fits the mold? Pretty, young white women.
And that’s why The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand – which is literally founded on embodying a lifestyle other women will want to emulate – is not about collective empowerment at all. It’s about a few people learning how to switch positions in the existing hierarchy.
And that hierarchy is white patriarchy.
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I’m writing a book about The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand and if you want updates, I send them out each Sunday by e-mail:https://kellydiels.com/subscribe/
