By Laura Bramall
I have four problems with BOSSY WOMEN. Here they are:
Sometimes you just have to get what you want
I’m not condoning being rude or pushy, but when a woman walks into a male dominated or even just high pressure environment it is, or at least can feel, necessary to garner instant respect. When a woman feels vulnerable, at the mercy of her more confident male peers, she needs to create her own space, and find a means of protecting herself. It’s fair to assume that the charge of bossiness is most commonly levelled at women when they are in position of power, or striving to be so, and so it is a term that reaches beyond the playground into the workplace. There is a clear gender gap in leadership today: in the US women hold almost 52% of professional level jobs but only 31% of professors, 6% of partners in venture capital firms (2013) and 20% of executives, senior officers and management in high-tech industries (2014). If a woman wants to be a leader then she really has to want it. She has to be prepared to push her way to the top, defying not only expectations but the people who stand in her way. Blommaert identifies the ‘gender authority gap’ and it is with this that women must grapple. Bridging this gap is the topic of many discussions, but for an isolated individual woman a hard challenge. If women are just less respected and command less authority than men then perhaps they’re going to have to be a little bit domineering.
2. Bossiness isn’t essentially feminine or not feminine
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg founded the ‘Ban Bossy’ campaign arguing that from a young age girls are trained to be quiet and submissive and so when they break these gender norms they are criticised as ‘bossy’. This challenges the notion that bossy women should shed their bossiness in order to preserve their femininity. The pseudo-feminist argument that women should be successful whilst maintaining essential feminine qualities fails in its assumption that bossiness is not feminine. Forbes’ Liz Elting’s claim that ‘Only in women does bossiness assume such profoundly negative connotations’ illustrates just this: what we may label assertiveness in a man is branded as masculine, and so when assumed by a women makes her less feminine. I challenge that any qualities are inherently masculine or feminine, but bossiness in particular should not be assumed to oppose any ‘feminine’ ideals. Alternatively, bossiness may be branded essentially feminine; the quality only of women who feel the need to assert themselves more than others. Elting continues to say that it is ‘no secret that women get penalised for the kinds of behaviours that earn men respect’ in a nod towards the division between bossiness as perceived in women and in men. Again, I see no reason for bossiness to be considered a feminine trait. It is rejected as distasteful in society, but bossiness is a characteristic of humans rather than genders.
3. Bossy men are just as annoying
According to the Center for Creative Leadership women are almost twice as likely to be told they are bossy than men (33% of women, 17% of men), but both bossy men and women are less likely to get promoted. This means that either men are less often considered bossy or that fewer men feel they need to be bossy in order to succeed. Either way, bossy men do exist but are less often labelled as such. At least a bossy woman has the excuse of needing to earn some respect, but anyone bossing you around is extremely irritating. It is a shame that women are criticised more often than men, but bossy people of both genders are rife and I am sure the word ‘bossy’ is conventionally collocated with ‘women’ rather than ‘men’. If we’re going to discuss our irritation with one gender, let’s do it with both, or not at all.
4. No one should ever have to be THAT bossy
Some people enjoy being bossy, but I think that most of us only turn on the bossiness when we feel like we really have to. Being bossy isn’t fun: it’s not truly empowering because any authority it earns is dependent on loud assertive behaviour. It’s also isolating: giving orders isn’t the best way to make friends. If we don’t really want to be bossy then we’re being bossy because we feel we have to. So maybe there’s something to solve there too.
Sources:
The Women’s Leadership Gap
Bossy: What’s Gender Got to Do With It?