If bossy is for little girls beginning to experience their power, bitter is for women who have realized theirs. Bossy. It’s a word preferred and often reserved for women and little girls—especially little girls. While all kids can be bratty, selfish, and get angry, bossy has an insidious gendered quality to it. So much so, […]
Woman-on-woman aggression really freaks people out. “I don’t know why I’m being such a coward about this,” I mused to my mom over Skype. “I think it must be my own internalized chauvinism or something. I’ll usually fight with anyone. As long as it’s a man.” The subject of my agonizing was a collaboration on […]
This originally appeared on BossedUp.org. Republished here with permission. The same qualities deemed necessary for leadership in our culture are positively correlated with likeability for men and negatively correlated with likeability for women. Lean in, they say. Crack the confidence code, we’re told. Boss up, we say, by investing in your personal sustainability to achieve […]
I define bossy to mean carrying a ferocious work ethic, being a person of conviction, and having a clear vision of how to solve problems. Much digital ink has been spilled over the Ban Bossy campaign—both for and against the campaign. I honestly felt a little betrayed by the Girl Scouts when I read about […]
