The term girlboss is sexist. Inserting women into professional spaces sounds like a good idea, but using the word “girlboss” suggests women don’t belong in the workplace despite good intentions.
In general, we view titles like doctor, astronaut and boss as professional and male, which is why we see phrases like “female astronaut” and never “male astronaut.” We see what these words insinuate about the men who dominate those industries.
Inserting the word girl before boss implies that we need to create an exception. If being a boss or CEO is male only, we need to make a subcategory to include women.
Additionally, using “girl” instead of “woman” in the phrasing is belittling. Imagine if you called a man a boyboss. It sounds like you are making fun of them by calling them a boy instead of a man. Choosing the term girl, the young version of women, to add to boss isn’t accidental.
On top of needing a special term to call women in the workplace, we also don’t recognize them as adults. Calling someone a girl is like calling them immature or unable to do things like an adult. We are saying a woman can’t do things the way a man can.
The term girlboss not only alienates women within the workplace but forces them out of that setting as well.
This sounds like I might be thinking too deeply about it, but I’m not. Linguistics, the words we use and how we use them, shape our reality. The words we use, the insults we choose and the names we give to people mean something. There is meaning behind everything we say and write.
Sexist messaging is especially prominent in common insults. Calling men “sissies” or saying “you throw like a girl” as an insult means something. These terms are rooted in misogyny by implying girls are less than men and being called one should be offensive. While girlboss may not be used as an insult, and may even be used with the intention to empower women, it surely has a misogynistic background the same way “sissy” does.
The language we use to describe gender is extremely important because language is how we shape the world around us. It is high time we analyze the meaning of the words we use and question what exactly these phrases are actually saying.
Maybe we should stop gendering the term boss and let all people of all genders be bosses.Instead of making a subcategory for women to be in, we can tackle the workplace by destroying gender exceptions.
Women don’t need a special term to help them into the workplace. We need to tackle the language we use and stop Hi equating boss with man. We need to stop creating these exceptions by adding the word women when talking about professionals.
This also goes for men and their role in traditionally female professions. For example, “flight attendant” brings to mind an image of a sexualized woman. Men in this profession will probably be referred to as male flight attendants because we see flight attendants as inherently female, therefore we must create an exception for men.
Doing this makes these jobs exclusive to people of different gender expressions, hurting women and everyone else. For one, we lay out certain jobs we think women are allowed to have and wanting anything outside of that is wrong. Alternatively, a man doing “a woman’s job” is an insult to that man.
Gender stereotypes put people into specific categories that limit their ability to do what they want to. The term girlboss does just that. Next time you call a friend who is hard working and accomplishing a lot a girlboss, ask yourself why you used that term.
