"First, we get elites like Jean-Pierre who no longer have to even pretend to care about doing a good job. Second, we undermine the importance of individual agency in achieving personal goals. And third, we have to suffer through the absurdity of the soft-girl, tradwife epidemic we’re living through right now."
Given the way people talk about fairly mild third wave stuff like Lean In, I think if you exposed the zoomers to serious second-wave feminism (like Ms Magazine from the 80s or even I Blame The Patriarchy for us old blogheads) they would spontaneously combust.
KJP’s PR tour has been an utter nightmare. Her appearance on the Bulwark was so awkward. If KJP was a girlboss wouldn’t she have been empowered not to cover up Biden losing his marbles while trying to run for president?
Power to the real GirlBosses like my wife and Jerusalem!
Is there truly a difference between genuine ambition, and the performance of genuine ambition in today's now? Is any publicly performed role not considered genuine, or else counterfeit, these days? We've lost the distinction, for sure. I can't even remembered when it happened, because the trend has been growing for so long. I want to say the 1980s, but even that isn't sure. Maybe our now has always been this way.
I'm no expert on Girlbosses, so I'm asking a real question here, more than making a statement: I want to know whether it's fair to characterize Girlbosses simply as women who ignore the intimidation of sexism and behave exactly as they like, even when that means organizing the efforts of others toward the pursuit of a personal goal — you know, just like any other (male) Boss would.
It makes sense that normalizing the phenomenon of women as executives eases the acceptance of subsequent women as executives, so it seems that Girlbossing assists the ambitions of women, generally — even if individual Girlbosses build nothing toward this direction, personally.
It seems that Jean-Pierre was bad at her job…
Returning to the distinction between genuine characteristics and performances for a moment, would it be fair to say that Jean-Pierre was simply a bad Girlboss because she was a poorly performing Girlboss — rather than *not* a Girlboss, because she was such a bad performer?
What happens when we mock strivers:
"First, we get elites like Jean-Pierre who no longer have to even pretend to care about doing a good job. Second, we undermine the importance of individual agency in achieving personal goals. And third, we have to suffer through the absurdity of the soft-girl, tradwife epidemic we’re living through right now."
Oooof.
🎯
why don’t we let kjp have “girlboss” and the rest of us can stick with “leader”
Given the way people talk about fairly mild third wave stuff like Lean In, I think if you exposed the zoomers to serious second-wave feminism (like Ms Magazine from the 80s or even I Blame The Patriarchy for us old blogheads) they would spontaneously combust.
KJP’s PR tour has been an utter nightmare. Her appearance on the Bulwark was so awkward. If KJP was a girlboss wouldn’t she have been empowered not to cover up Biden losing his marbles while trying to run for president?
Power to the real GirlBosses like my wife and Jerusalem!
Bullshit
Is there truly a difference between genuine ambition, and the performance of genuine ambition in today's now? Is any publicly performed role not considered genuine, or else counterfeit, these days? We've lost the distinction, for sure. I can't even remembered when it happened, because the trend has been growing for so long. I want to say the 1980s, but even that isn't sure. Maybe our now has always been this way.
I'm no expert on Girlbosses, so I'm asking a real question here, more than making a statement: I want to know whether it's fair to characterize Girlbosses simply as women who ignore the intimidation of sexism and behave exactly as they like, even when that means organizing the efforts of others toward the pursuit of a personal goal — you know, just like any other (male) Boss would.
It makes sense that normalizing the phenomenon of women as executives eases the acceptance of subsequent women as executives, so it seems that Girlbossing assists the ambitions of women, generally — even if individual Girlbosses build nothing toward this direction, personally.
It seems that Jean-Pierre was bad at her job…
Returning to the distinction between genuine characteristics and performances for a moment, would it be fair to say that Jean-Pierre was simply a bad Girlboss because she was a poorly performing Girlboss — rather than *not* a Girlboss, because she was such a bad performer?
•••
I really enjoyed this essay, by the way. 😀