A series of memories flash on the screen, showing Captain Marvel – Carol Danvers – falling again and again, from girlhood to womanhood, and then rising after each and every fall. The montage appears to be intended as a big middle finger to men and patriarchy. This scene, and really the whole movie, demonstrates how girls and women are constantly being oppressed by boys and men. However, Carol Danvers manages to turn this around – showing how women can be as powerful as men.

And this is exactly the problem with Captain Marvel’s feminism – women being as powerful as men.

Of course, this is not the only problem with Captain Marvel’s feminism. Putting to the side the fact that the film is white, U.S. American-centric and upper-middle class, Marvel uses its first female-led superhero movie to showcase a cheap brand of corporate feminism.

The notion that women can be as good as men is just as old as Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” – and while Nirvana’s song is not detrimental to today’s equality, this notion is. The problem with this notion is not that it’s false – which it obviously is not – it’s the way it is phrased and portrayed in Captain Marvel. Measuring women’s power in relation to men’s power not only subliminally patronizes women, it also communicates that the only way for women to be valued and successful in society is to be, essentially, men. If we, as a society, still make men’s power as the highest form of power, then we are undermining feminine qualities. In other words, the phrase “women can be as good as men” values traits typically associated with men and masculinity over traits typically associated with women and feminity, such as care and nurture.

Feminist philosopher Sandra Harding argued that women should not aim to be “men in petticoats.” For centuries, feminine qualities have been subordinated to masculine ones. While many people, including feminist philosophers like Harding and other public figures, have offered improvements to this sexist notion, Captain Marvel reverts back to this age-old principle. Frankly speaking, there is more feminism in Ariana Grande’s three-minute “7 Rings” than the whole of Captain Marvel.

Not only that, but Captain Marvel showcases a power structure that resembles one used to paint feminism as a man-hating movement. Carol Danvers does not move past the ol’ battle of the sexes, essentially saying that there are only two types of people in a society the powerful – namely, men – and the powerless – namely, women. This dichotomous power-structured feminism claims that there can only be one gender in power in society, and Danvers shows that if women toughen up, then they can be the ones with the upper hand. However, this polarization has only helped to define feminism as wanting to have one gender in power – in this case, women. This not only misrepresents feminism to people outside of the movement but also continues a toxic tradition of how power is viewed in a society. Essentially, the so-called empowerment in Captain Marvel only strengthens an antagonistic and dichotomous view of societal power – the same one that has been used to perpetuate sexism and patriarchy. Feminism is not about bashing the male gender; it is about bashing the patriarchal structures that created the conditions in which both men and women assume prescriptive roles according to their genders. Captain Marvel obviously ignores this.

However, for the sake of the argument, let’s put aside how Captain Marvel promotes second-wave feminism, and focus on how Marvel uses this movie to demonstrate that it isn’t a sexist corporation (which it is). In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain Marvel is the only movie with a female lead. Besides the fact that this movie came too late in regards to traditional Liberalist standards of feminism, the only power that I felt during this movie was the power of Marvel executives in Marvel rubbing their hands together at how much money this “feminist” movie was going to make.

However, corporations constantly use social movements to increase their sales. It’s not just Marvel – just take a look at Dove and you’ll find the same thing. If I started to criticize every corporation that has ever used a social movement to bring something new to the capitalist table this article would have no end. The problem with Captain Marvel specifically is that Marvel completely decontextualized feminism – a movement filled with history, activists and different sections – simply so they could sell tickets.

Captain Marvel is not an empowering movie. It is a movie that first of all, posits traditional norms about male power as the ultimate goal women should strive to achieve; as if the only thing that is going to empower women is beating up men to show the world that we can be as good as them. This not only re-emphasizes the notion that stereotypically male attributes are what we should all aim for but also paints feminism as a movement that is merely about inversing the dichotomous power structure between the genders. Furthermore, Marvel completely takes feminism out of its historical context and applies it in the movie only for box office results.

If Marvel really wanted an empowering movie targeting women, it should not have perpetuated the same structures that created the disempowerment. It should not have defined Danvers’ power and success as being dependent on the weaknesses of men. Captain Marvel cannot be called a feminist movie when what it really does is perpetuate deep-seated sexist ideologies.