My response to the recent pushback against the term girl boss

I keep seeing more and more pushback against using these additional descriptors when talking about business. The argument is usually that men don’t use them and we shouldn’t either. That they are keeping us small and holding us back. Individually, but also as a community.

I disagree.

Yes, men don’t have to use these descriptors. They would never call themselves boy boss or men boss. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? They never had to and they still don’t need to. For hundreds and thousands of years they have been the only bosses. It’s still a very new phenomenon that women, and young women especially, can build their own businesses. To me, being a girl boss is a badge of honor. It acknowledges that history. It acknowledges that we’re still not where we want to be. Most businesses are still founded by men. Most businesses are still led by men. This brings me to my next point…

It’s not business as usual.

We are not doing business as usual. To me, calling myself a girl boss, my business a small business and all that means that I’m not doing business in the traditional male-dominated way. And neither do my clients. Male-led businesses are often very traditional in their understanding of competition and scale. But the beauty of the new wave of female-owned small businesses, the beauty of girl bosses is that we’re doing things our own way and building our businesses in new ways. Isn’t that why many of us founded our businesses in the first place? Because we didn’t want to do business as usual? To me, small business means that there’s no ambition to scale it up into a multi-million dollar enterprise, but to stay small. But that’s not a bad thing! Success isn’t just scale or money. Girl boss to me means more focus on community over competition and embracing what is traditionally considered more female strengths. And that is not to say that one form of business is necessarily better or more successful than the other. It’s just different. And using those descriptors helps to figure out who is more aligned with the way I want to do business and the people I want to work with.

Girl is not a dirty word.

If you think adding “girl” in front of anything is keeping it small and giving it a bad vibe that is what is actually holding girls and women back. So often anything that is feminized is seen as lesser. And that’s a much bigger problem than proudly embracing your feminine strengths. Things that are traditionally feminine are still often seen as less worthy. But shouldn’t we work on the root instead of just getting rid of the symptom? By embracing our feminine traits and our way of doing business, we’re standing tall and proud instead of hiding behind doing it like the men. Yes, language has power. But we have power over language too. If we allow things like girl boss to be used negatively then that’s what they’ll be. But if we say them with pride they can’t be used against us and can’t be used to keep us small. They’ll actually lift us up.

Now, that is not to say that you have to call yourself a girl boss when you’d rather be the boss. If you don’t want to call your business a small business then don’t do it. That’s fair. But please don’t go around telling girl bosses and female small business owners that they’re not feminists and holding themselves and other women back by using these descriptors. Because in my opinion, that’s actually a lot more harmful than calling yourself a girl boss. That being said, girl boss is always a label that should be chosen, not imposed. Don’t go around calling any female or female-passing entrepreneur girl boss if they don’t choose that label for themselves. The whole point of this is for us to be able to choose which labels we want to embrace.

So here’s to my girl bosses and boss babes and small biz businesses and solopreneurs who are walking boldly ahead and doing business their own way!