Banning Bossy- March 10, 2014
Tina Fey has been my idol for some time now. Then Sheryl Sandberg came along and I’m all like, “Gah! You are amazing! Thank you for all you do!” So, I was pretty psyched this morning when I read about the start of the Ban Bossy campaign.
I hate the word “bossy.” Hate it. Maybe it was because I was the target of “bossy” a lot as a child. I’m the oldest child and grandchild. I’m a natural extrovert with enthusiastic tendencies. My ideas for games and activities, coupled with my excitement, meant I often rallied the troops on the playground or in the neighborhood for some fun adventure or another. Sometimes this rubbed other kids the wrong way and I was called “bossy.” The worst was other neighborhood kids’ mothers calling me a “hot shot” or telling their kids not to put up with me being bossy. I don’t remember the same of the boys in the neighborhood. The boys were never criticized for being bossy. They were praised for being leaders. I was “pushy.” They were “persuasive.” It was crap.
Me at age 9 or 10, likely hoping not to be called “bossy” for being myself.
The scourge of puberty and and my bossy label meant I occasionally shied away from my natural leadership tendencies as a young adolescent for fear of not being liked. I think for a lot of girls it is more important to be well-liked than respected. This follows many of us into womanhood, myself included. As it was pointed out in numerous articles today, “bossy” leads to “the other b-word.”
Someone implied that my three-year-old daughter might follow my footsteps and become “bossy” like her mother. This implication made my blood boil. This quote from Sandberg is the best. “I want every little girl who’s told she’s bossy to be told she has leadership skills.”
image: Wikipedia
So, I’m all about the #banbossy campaign and I salute Sandberg’s Lean In and the Girl Scouts for starting it, but I think it needs to go even further. This quote from Sarah Silverman really struck a chord with me. “Stop telling girls they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. I think it’s a mistake. Not because they can’t, but because it never would have occurred to them they couldn’t.”
image: upr.org
Someone with the best intentions pointed out to my daughter the other day that “Girls can do anything boys can!” Blerg! Shhh! Of course they can! Why wouldn’t they?! Don’t point it out to her. She probably never would have thought of it if someone hadn’t brought it up. Stop talking about how “girls can play sports too!” Blah! Blah! Blah! Just sign them up for sports, let them run for office in their classes and if the issue of sexism comes up, address it then, but don’t make it an issue before it is.
My daughter just finished learning all about the presidents in preschool. She even wrote a letter to President Obama. I did not point out to her that none of the presidents were women. I refuse to make a big deal about Hillary Clinton running for office in 2016. When she wins and becomes the first woman president, I refuse to make a big deal about her being a woman to my kids.
For daughter AND my son, I want the idea of a woman president to be an obvious part of life. I want the idea of a female boss to be typical, and the idea that she was bossy to get there, bogus.
Spread it around:
I suspect the “girls can do anything boys can do” mantra comes from our grandparents’ and parents’ generations when it was a radical idea that girls would play sports or run for President. It’s a difficult habit to break for those people. On the flip side I battle with people (politely of course) that it isn’t detrimental to my ten month old son to wear a pink diaper handed down from his older sister.
To me the term bossy indicates poor behavior, that the person being bossy isn’t taking other people’s feelings and abilities and wants into account. I also think the way you present your ideas is a determining factor in labeling behavior “bossy” or “leading”. Is the person barking orders or are they calmly presenting themselves?
That is so true! That is totally a generational thing! Good point! Yes. I think bossy is a bad behavior term. But, I think girls are disproportionately called bossy. But, I totally see what you’re saying.
::slow clap:: Amy, so very well-put. I was also labeled as bossy and suffered a lot of the same that you mention in this post. Kudos to Sheryl Sandberg for making this a conversation the US is having. I hope your little one has the leadership skills you and I exhibited as children and isn’t hindered in using them.
Thanks! Agreed! I think you are a great leader! You certainly were when we were kids.
This past weekend, Bill and I took all the kids to this little green in our neighborhood. While I played with Kat and watched Bill and the boys kick a soccer ball around, I watched and listened to this other group of kids playing. Among those kids was one boy who was commandeering an imaginative role-playing like scenario with the other kids. He told everyone what they were going to do, gave himself the best part, criticized the others for not fulfilling his vision, and ignored their ideas, pushing his own through. I thought, “Man, that kid sure is bossy.” He was definitely male, but his behavior didn’t make me think of him as a leader. I thought he was a bit of an jerk, to be honest. I never really considered “bossy” to be a gender-predominant adjective.
Like Jennifer, I don’t think of “bossy” as meaning strong-willed or enthusiastic. I think of it as domineering, dogmatic, singleminded, manipulative, and controlling. A bossy kid, in my opinion, doesn’t have good leadership skills. A kid who demands that everyone play his way, who pushes his/her agenda on the group without listening or respecting the other kids, or who manipulates and refuses to play if everyone doesn’t do things his way is being bossy. A kid who is simply an enthusiastic rallier and orchestrator of group activities, who listens to his play mates is a leader. Personally, I will never have a problem telling my sons or my daughter to stop being bossy. That doesn’t mean I don’t want them to lead and be passionate about their ideas and excited about their plans. It does mean that I want them to be considerate of others. Whether everyone operates under this definition of bossy, I don’t know. Rather than banning bossy, I’d be more inclined to more clearly define it. If my kids are railroading their agendas onto people, then they need to stop being bossy. If they are simply being enthusiastic ralliers of the neighborhood, as you describe, then I think they should be free to lead on. Thanks for a thought-provoking post. I had never given “bossy” much thought before today.
Good point! “Bossy” is a domineering behavior. My issue is when girls are called “bossy” when they are just being leaders. The disparity between girls and boys is there, in my experience.