Why girl boss feminism doesn't work

“If women get the top roles in corporates, things will become better”

This was the basic ethic that founded girl boss feminism. Men, the gender, seemed to be the problem most workspaces had. It was assumed that men did not allow the growth of others in the organisation.?

People thought that putting women at the top would remedy all this, but they were proven wrong. Pretty soon.

Girl boss feminism, or choice feminism, was initially thought to be a revolution in the workspace. It was thought that these girl bosses would succeed and create an inclusive environment that will help other women to grow as well.

Girl boss feminism soon started to be associated with the empowerment of individual women, and not the elevation of the status of the women as a whole. These women worked for their motives and were not driven by a force of liberating the gender. For instance, let’s talk about the most famous girl boss, the one who coined the term herself, Sophia Amoruso. The Nasty Gal founder’s business career was full of anti-feminist principles. She felt that she was a woman in business, which was empowering and feminist enough in itself. What she failed to realise was that she was ultimately a capitalist that exploited women to meet ends. A capitalist ecosystem thrives at the expense of many others, that is the working class, which included many women. An investigation by The Sunday Times brought to light that garment workers at her company earned an hourly wage of ￡3.50 at a factory in Leicester, which was much lower than the minimum wage of ￡8.72 for those over the age of 25.

In 2015, Sophia once again stepped into the spotlight when a discrimination lawsuit alleged that Nasty Gal had illegally fired pregnant employees. After this suit was filed, many employees came forth with stories about how toxic the workplace was. In 2016, the company filed for bankruptcy.

Such instances with Nasty Gal came as a blow as the company showcased an image that? celebrated girl power and strong women. Nasty Gal is a perfect example of a company that seemed to preach the ideals of feminism but still exploited its women. It showed how the fashion giant gained an impressive following off feminist principles it didn’t itself follow.?

But this isn’t an isolated event. History is full of women who failed to do better. Although, of course, women are always held to an exceptionally high standard as compared to men.?

Margret Thatcher was another renowned brand of girl boss before it was a thing. As the first female Prime Minister of the UK, she was considered the epitome of feminism, but just holding the office wasn’t enough. Thatcher didn’t politicise her gender. This was appreciated by her male counterparts and seemed like an inspiration for young girls. But if it wasn’t for her gender and the political context that led up to voting in Thatcher (including the women who campaigned for her under the impression that she would improve things for women), she might not have ended up in office. So by not talking about her gender, she gained the support of the men in the room but disempowered all the women who rooted for her and wished to see her work for them as a feminist icon.

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg in her book Lean In taught women how they could handle both, their personal lives and work lives. And for a while, the phenomenon took the girl boss culture by storm. But the second shoe fell rather quickly, when Sheryl failed to acknowledge the extensive privilege she had as a wealthy white woman. Not all women have nannies and other supporting staff to take care of their children while they work, after all. Also in 2018, amidst the news around Facebook and Russian elections, a New York Times report ?shed light on Sandberg’s bullying behaviour.

Examples of women rising to the top under the guise of girl boss feminism, without uplifting anyone else when they arrive, have littered contemporary corporate culture.?

In 2019, The Verge reported on Away, a supposedly feminist suitcase brand where employees’ alleged that co-founder and co-CEO Steph Korey bullied employees. They stated that the company wasn’t as inclusive or diverse as it claimed to be.

In 2020, former employees of the Wing, a women’s co-working space, said the social space created was only for show. They also alleged that Black and brown employees were mistreated. Wing founder Audrey Gelman stepped down that June.

The same year, employees at Glossier alleged they faced discrimination from both their company and the customers they served. They said upper management was predominantly white women.

Similar allegations of toxic work environments and discriminatory behavior surfaced at women-led media outlets such as Refinery29, Man Repeller, Who What Wear, and Vogue, as well as women’s clothing company Reformation and the women-founded luxury exercise chain SoulCycle.

The problem with girl boss feminism is that these women, while taking up roles that were previously male-dominated, often begin acting like the men they replaced. And in doing so, they start disregarding the women, as the men do. So, while a few women become empowered and take up important positions, they refuse to extend their platforms to other women who don’t come from a similar background. Often, these women try not to talk about their gender and act like the “men in the business”, which they, and the men around them considered “professional”.?

We realise that not every action is empowering, inspiring, or liberating simply because a woman is doing it. But being a successful woman should not go hand in hand with being a person who is willing to step on anyone (including other women) to get to the top of their field, whilst a major part of their success and personal brand relies on feminism.

What we need is a change of structure, rather than a change in structure. We need people who would empower other people, especially minorities and oppressed groups. These reformers would be people who work on these ideals, no matter man, or woman.

–Nandini Bhala