Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand

KELLY COLLAGE_Female Empowerment Brand

The Female Lifestyle

Empowerment Brand

(It's not a good thing.)

This page includes my definition of The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand + all my essays and blog posts explaining why it’s bad for women, our businesses and our culture.

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Definition:

A "perfect woman" archetype must comply with and embody in order to be deserving of rights and resources

AND

A marketing strategy that leverages social status and white privilege to create authority over other women.

KD – Square Images-07
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In Our Culture

Every Woman Is a Brand

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Start here

Pop art vintage comic. A woman with a poster and place for text. Girl in retro style. Advertising

The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand. An introduction.

Somewhere, on the edge of consciousness, there is what I call a mythical norm, which each one of us within our hearts knows “that is not me.” In America, this norm is usually defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure. -...

Featured posts

Ixtapa, Mexico + John Rawls + No Pedi. Unthinkable now, right?

#tbt Toes in the Sand but NO PEDI. Also, The Beauty Myth then and now.

cartoon of 1950s man in suit with his feet propped up on table saying "it's not my problem" about the so-called "feminist pendulum"

Feminism, Femininity and The Swinging Pendulum. A Question for You.

The Context for The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brrand

Not Enough Compensation in the World

December 8 2019

on “lying to ourselves”. (I’m not so sure we do.)

This is your Sunday Love Letter.  Many a delicious volume has been penned about the existence and adventures of elves, fairies, pixies and trolls.  And ...

September 23 2019

nope, ‘Queen’ is not a feminist business model

welcome to your Sunday Love Letter. Before we get started, here's what's going on this week at www.kellydev.wpengine.com: I'm teaching an online workshop on Saturday ...

August 11 2019

The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand, Mental Triggers, and Weaponized Imperfection

Business Tip for Culture Makers #811: Avoid Using Weaponized Imperfection or Leveraging Privilege to Build (Fake) Authority. If you haven’t seen this particular post, you’ve ...

June 9 2019

Who’s running our social media accounts? Us, or our social conditioning?

This week a friend of mine and I closed our eyes and imagined what a successful woman looks like. I'm a fat woman with biracial ...

May 31 2019

Business Tip for Culture Makers #1220: A Culture Making Approach to Stock Photos

Images are an essential business resource and they have culture-making power. For a long time, I knew that but I didn't know how to herd ...

May 17 2019

What it Means to Be a Culture Maker in Your Business and Media

On my website, the first thing you'll see is the statement: "We are The Culture Makers”. I say this because it's true. We have the ...

July 30 2018

Dear Women’s Empowerment Coaches: Is Your Teacher’s Teacher a Men’s Rights Activist?

Note: The following essay is an excerpt of a chapter of the book I'm writing about The Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand; I first published it as ...

May 3 2018

Talking with My Hands and Trying to Be Good with Emelia

#tbt to those times I was on a radio show hosted by the incomparable Emelia Symington-Fedy of Trying To Be Good with Emelia . . ...

April 27 2018

Sorry! The Lifestyle You Ordered is Currently Out of Stock

Graffiti by Banksy; photo by Bruce Krasting https://www.flickr.com/photos/bruce_krasting/7695349260 This feels like some anti-FLEB (Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand) awesomeness in graffiti form. It's by Banksy. So ...

April 26 2018

“Prettiness is Not a Rent You Pay…” by Erin McKean

YES. AND ALSO: I've seen this quote floating around on Instagram, usually attributed in error to Diana Vreeland. In fact Erin McKean, the founder of ...

Every week, I send you a

Sunday Love Letter

I write them so that…

  1. You remember your culture-making power
  2. You have the inspiration + tools you need to grow a future in which we all flourish
Are you in?

**We Are Growing The Institutions of The Future** ⁠
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I believe in the culture makers.⁠
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It might not feel like it, but right now -- at our home offices, tiny studios, kitchen tables, massage tables, hot desks, in our garages -- we are growing the institutions of the future.⁠
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Many of our most politically significant national organizations started off in someone's living room as a mutual aid society.⁠
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Many a movement kicked off as a meeting around a kitchen table.⁠
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A whole lot of businesses get started at kitchen tables, too -- or in garages.⁠
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And then they grow into culture-shaping, culture-making institutions.⁠
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So....what you're doing right now really matters. ⁠
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The challenge for culture-making entrepreneurs is that a lot of the tools for growing businesses + audiences are NOT tools we want to carry into the future.⁠
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Take status quo marketing, for example. ⁠
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Being visible and marketing are game-changing business skills-- ones we need to get our messages out into the world, make sales, and grow.⁠
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AND...mainstream marketing systems use shaming and subconscious triggers to get people to buy. ⁠
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They leverage pain & scarcity so people will buy to 'solve' the problem.⁠
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Using high-risk "persuasion" tactics and mental/social triggers is something mainstream marketers brag about (!!!!) and teach.⁠
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This is the NORM.⁠
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These are all dominance tactics. And dominance is not a practice I plan to carry into the future.⁠
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We do NOT have to pour oppressive practices into the foundations of our future institutions.⁠
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That's why I know that developing new-world business practices, through a systemic lens,  is necessary. ⁠
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Learning how to message + grow audiences and sales IS important for our businesses right now AND for the institutions we're growing.⁠
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That's why I teach business through a systemic, feminist lens -- so we have the tools we need to rise & thrive, right now... ...AND in the better future we're growing, together.⁠
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Let's make money AND justice.⁠
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#WeAreTheCultureMakers⁠
www.kellydiels.com⁠
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Maybe long-term exploitation is why we feel anxious about money.⁠
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No maybe about it.⁠
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#moneyANDjustice⁠
---⁠
www.kellydiels.com