Who Exactly Are the "Girlbosses?"
If there is a big group of useless career women who are pulling off the scam of the century, surely they'd be easier to describe.
Another day, another girlboss article. (Orange you glad I didn’t say “Lindy West?” Just kidding, the article mentions her too.) I feel a bit weird writing about the new viral article The Myth of the Independent Girlboss because it was written by Inez Stepman, who has always been very pleasant and polite to me even when we disagree—so no, I have no issue with her personally, nor is this meant to be any kind of takedown. But her piece (and others like it, written by other women with, checks notes, jobs) leaves a major question unanswered: if “girlbosses” are a drain on our resources, propped up by the woke government and providing zero value (and as Stepman points out, millions of working women do deserve their paychecks) who exactly are the girlbosses pulling off this massive scam?
First of all, the term “girlboss” has never really been used as a self-descriptor by any woman in corporate except for the one woman who coined the term—Sophia Amoruso, the founder of the NastyGal clothing brand (and, dare I say, someone who by definition deserved the title in a non-derisive way because she ran her own company.) Other than Amoruso, “girlboss” generally became a buzzy term in the 2010s used to motivate stay-at-home moms to join MLM scams selling various crystals, oils and ugly leggings. But I suppose our now-cringe idea of a girlboss is a woman who:
works in a high-earning white collar role
is “powerful” in a career-oriented girl power sense, not some low-level pencil-pusher (think Sheryl Sandberg, per Lean In)
has a job that doesn’t really need to exist
is incompetent, or providing minimal company value and is only in her position because of DEI, government subsidies, or some other liberal scheme.
My argument is that this person—someone who fulfills all or most of this criteria—basically doesn’t exist, which is why nobody can drill down who the girlbosses really are.
