We Girl Boss’ed Too Close To The Sun

Feminism as a raw bag of onions (for some).

I don’t really remember when the term “girl boss” entered the zeitgeist, but it feels like sometime between 2012 and 2017. According to this post, it emerged in 2014 — so I was generally accurate. Nice.

Now, before we get too far here, I think we need to admit a few things upfront. First of all, the idea of “girl boss” or “third wave feminism” was only really ever about the success of a few privileged white women (and, say, Beyonce and Rihanna) supposedly paving the path for everyone else. This was never about “lifting all boats.” It was a play by people like Sheryl Sandberg, who have access to legitimately some of the best childcare in the world, to convince new moms with derp, video-game-obsessed husbands that they could “have it all.”

Modern Feminism Thinks The Success Of Privileged White Women Emancipates Everyone Else

As with everything, there has been a little bit of a recoil — and now those who fell for “girl boss” in 2014 in their early 20s are hitting 2024, now in their early 30s, and thinking, “Damn, I need a man and a family.”