MOTUS A.D.: #BanBossy: The Cow Stands Alone

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

#BanBossy: The Cow Stands Alone

This whole Bossy the Cow thing is very confusing, so make sure you’ve had your coffee.

We’re apparently championing a new hashtag campaign:

I thought it was one of those made-up urban legends until I read Doug Powers article, “Go figure: ‘Bossy’ not a horrible word 3 months ago but now FLOTUS wants it banned.” The #BanBossy campaign is a joint effort of the DNC’s fight against the GOP’s War on Women,

the Girl Scouts,

and Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook (Field Marshall in the War on MOTUS) and author of “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” the little book of feminist wisdom and other tropes. Sheryl’s using #BanBossy as a marketing campaign for her book, which holds forth the same argument against calling girls “bossy:”

Sheryl Sandberg has long criticized the use the of the word "bossy" to describe young girls who are assertive. Instead, the Facebook COO has urged people to forgo the word with all its negative connotations, and instead describe these girls as "feminist" or displaying "executive leadership skills."

Here’s where it gets confusing: apparently the group-think on this is if you call a girl “bossy” it’s sexist or something. So let’s call them assertive.

The argument, as laid forth in the Wall Street Journal article:

Sandberg — the chief operating officer of Facebook and author of the best-selling book “Lean In” — is spearheading the launch of a campaign today to ban the word “bossy,” arguing the negative put-down stops girls from pursuing leadership roles.

“We know that by middle school, more boys than girls want to lead,” Sandberg said, “and if you ask girls why they don’t want to lead, whether it’s the school project all the way on to running for office, they don’t want to be called bossy, and they don’t want to be disliked.”

Because if you call a girls “bossy,” it will kill her ability to act assertively and be a leader in the executive suite. So JUST STOP DOING IT! - NOW! That sounds pretty bossy to me.

Given that everyone from Lady M to Beyoncé has jumped on the bandwagon, it might be impolitic of me to point out that being bossy is different from being assertive. Here are the synonyms I found for “bossy:” autocratic, cocky, dictatorial, high-handed, imperious, tyrannical, oppressive. Butt I didn’t see “assertive” anywhere, which has it’s own list of synonyms: confident, decisive, emphatic, forceful, insistent, self-assured, self-confident – none of which sound necessarily “bossy” to me. “Bossy” is more like a specific, ego-centric, know-it-all, my-way-or-the-highway sort of behavior most often associated with children (of either sex) who are in need of a little adult supervision. They need to be taught and coached so their behavior is directed in more suitable directions and their basic instincts molded into more effective behavior; otherwise they’ll remain social pariahs for the rest of their life.

So let me make this perfectly clear: just because Bossy is a female cow,

this is not exclusively a female problem. For example, if we go through the synonyms for “bossy” –

autocratic:

cocky:

dictatorial:

high-handed:

imperious:

tyrannical:

oppressive:

…we find that they apply equally to men. And not always in a complimentary manner either. I leave it to you to determine if they connote leadership skills.

In the meantime, #BanBossy is off and running. I find it remarkable how quickly the ~~herd of cows~~ bossy gals jumped on the haywagon (don’t ask me what Condi’s doing in with this group: I’m guessing it’s a misguided commitment to the Girl Scouts). It’s already so viral that it’s almost like a MSM sound-bite rolling through the echo-chamber.