Confessions of a Recovering Girlboss

I’m all for female entrepreneurship. I support women in businesses big and small, I’m all about “leaning in” and “taking up room”. This is an exciting time to be a woman! We’re owning more businesses, gaining more seats in government, and fighting for the rights to our bodies (which is insane that we even have to do so in 2020). But lately there’s something that has quietly taken up a resistance in my brain. It was something that when it started, I couldn’t get enough. I read books about it, put stickers on my computer, I might have even had it in my Instagram bio for a week.

But now I’ve had enough: I don’t want to be called a “girlboss.”

The term girlboss caught like wildfire when it first left the lips of millennial women. I was one of them! The notion that women were rising up, taking charge, being bosses of our own lives and in the work place. How could that ever be a bad thing? Maybe I’m being sensitive, but to me, the phrase has taken new meaning. It feels as though it’s been weaponized to make women feel inadequate, that we aren’t doing or achieving enough (we already get this from seeing 22-year-olds on Instagram making six-figures from selling tea. WE GET IT!).

The term “girlboss” has been transformed into a cover to convince women that we need to do more. How dare we have free time! Pick up a side hustle and get RICH! If your hobby doesn’t make you money, what’s the point? It’s become a suppression of true feeling. I don’t know one woman who hasn’t felt like she isn’t far enough in her career, or feels behind in life, bills, dating, etc. We’re in a rush, and now we have lists like the “Forbes 30 Under 30” to remind us to hurry up (Because as we all know, after 30, you die). Does “girlboss” act as a blanket to conceal the behind-the-scenes struggle that comes with success, to make it seem like we have it all together? When did a “brunch in bed” photo or “pretty girl eating a giant burger” become inspirational? Who are we trying to fool?

No man is going around calling himself a “boyboss”. If they did, we would never take them seriously. It also sounds like the title of a bad 90’s Disney Channel Original Movie (which I would watch anyway, because I never miss a D.C.O.M). They don’t need to label their power, because no one questions or fears it. It doesn’t need to be dimmed or softened to make it more digestible. Boss. No gender. My friends are bosses- literally and figuratively. They manage departments, teach classes, volunteer. They are moms, single women, married. They are honest about how they feel and don’t try to mask it for the sake of a title made by a woman, for women, to ultimately sell us notebooks and necklaces with the phrase. On second thought, maybe keep the necklaces. I would pay good money to see one of my old bosses wear a “boyboss” pendant.

If being a “girlboss” inspires you, I don’t want to diminish or take that away from you. But I hope we can become comfortable enough in our own power to not have to justify or label it. Women are powerful, period. We can be motivated by the sole fact that we all have a purpose, and will get there when we’re supposed to. Lizzo is 31, Nancy Pelosi is almost 80. It’s not a race, success does not look the same to everyone. Our power as women is reaching new heights, it has no limit. And if we have no bounds as to what that power will achieve, it can’t be labeled. And it definitely can’t fit on a sticker.