When I first binged watch Girl Boss on Netflix, I was enamored. Sophia Amoruso was a fashion god in my 16-year-old eyes. The self-proclaimed ‘girl boss’, who was one of the richest self-made women in the world at the time, had rightfully earned the title. Her version of feminism pushed developing an unstoppable need to make a way for yourself while refusing to sacrifice your femininity.
All seemed good with the new trope in 2017 until the title became condensed into a simple slogan that began to lose its meaning. A ‘girl boss’ was the new thing to be, thrown onto everything from T-shirts to profile headlines. What once was a strong stance against conforming to the heavily masculine approach that is rewarded in capitalist America became the exact monster it was supposed to be fighting.
A ‘girl boss’ morphed into a double-headed hustler—one side with an insatiable appetite for money and the other so focused on empowering other women that the value of the term lost its cool and became a joke online. Despite this, I held onto Amoruso’s initial message from her book.
Keeping my eye focused on my future, I became fixated on being the best ‘girl boss’ I could be. I got lost in quotes from the book like, “don’t ever grow up. Don’t become a bore. Don’t ever let the Man get to you.” In my head, this version of encouragement pushed me towards a mindset on achievement orientation mode.
Vision boards and five-year plans morphed into my personal interest slipping away right in front of my eyes. It didn’t help that I was about to be a senior in high school, where the only thing on my mind was the future ahead. To deal with the uncertainty, I worked tirelessly at my future every day, hoping that the ‘girl boss’ mentality would be my saving grace.
All of my daily activities soon centered around building my future career, and I became more addicted to the chase of it all than my dreams. Every yes and every job offer was only motivation to work harder. The original voice that inspired me disappeared as it left the movement itself.
Diving deep into a world of obligations, I felt like I had no choice but to be the ‘girl boss’ I was striving to be. There was no time to turn back now for the sake of my mental health. I found twisted happiness in my world of constant climbing to the top—until I saw how far I had strayed from my original purpose.
Thankfully, I found meaning in the pause of quarantine. Looking at my cramped calendars of the past months and dark eye bags threw me into reality. The lost girl that was supposed to be “sticking to the man” didn’t realize where room for peace laid in her feminist mission. Working hard to be better than a man may be the version of the ‘girl boss’ that our society has glamorized, but a real ‘girl boss’, even on her rest days, knows she has nothing to prove and the world that she creates will speak for itself.