Is ‘girlboss’ the new ‘toxic masculinity’?

The rise of the “girlboss” – aka, the independent, self-motivated, don’t-need-nobody female icon who gets s**t done – has really taken off in the past few years.

During that same period, we have also endured a pandemic, staggering unemployment rates, financial insecurity, grief, loss, and a lot of uncertainty.

Nonetheless, the concept of the “girlboss” is still going strong.

The term arguably gained its popularity with the purpose of encouraging the presence of women in stereotypically male roles and workplaces. But with both the Molly-Mae Hague debacle (which saw the former Love Island star claim “we all have the same 24 hours in a day”) and Kim Kardashian’s “just get your f***ing ass up and work” comments, it appears the once positive mantra has taken a toxic turn, encouraging women to just “get on with it” – to work themselves to the bone, regardless of their personal circumstances.

For me, this begs the question: is the “girlboss” persona any better than the notion of toxic masculinity, and the negative gender stereotypes it gives way to?

As a final year university student who juggles journalism with my studies, I myself have had friends jokingly refer to me as a “girlboss”, showering me in positivity and applauding my achievements, but what we often fail to address is how addictive this validation can be. As soon as I finish one piece, I hardly allow myself a moment to pause and value the time and effort I have put into my work, because I am too busy thinking about what I can do next, how I can improve, and where I should send my next pitch.

This mindset of constantly wanting to achieve but never slowing down to appreciate what you have already accomplished creates a vicious cycle whereby you are constantly working and never feeling a sense of achievement.

Without taking the time to slow down, I often find myself working relentlessly for days at a time until I am exhausted, burned out and forced to take a day off. When I finally take the time off, I feel guilty, as if I have failed. I feel that I need to make up for “lost time” – and so the cycle begins anew.

Just like toxic masculinity, the idea of the “girlboss” encourages an individual to work hard, to just “get on with it”, and emphasises the necessity of being a lone wolf. These gendered stereotypes have not slowed down in the wake of the pandemic – if anything, the toxic productivity they entail has increased throughout these past two years, seeing more and more people suffer from burnout and low self-esteem.

To gain more insight, I spoke to a number of experts, all of whom shared the view that there are a growing number of similarities between the idea of being a “girlboss” and conforming to the standards of toxic masculinity.

Therapist, coach and neuroscientist Bobbi Banks made sure to emphasise that toxic masculinity does not imply that masculinity itself is toxic, explaining that it rather “represents an unhealthy and rigid definition of what it means to be a man in today’s world”. We discussed the rise in people experiencing burnout, and the extent to which an urge for reassurance and validation contributes to overworking, and the promotion of personas such as the “girlboss” encouraging this behaviour.

Banks added that “unhealthy societal norms and expectations contribute to this [need for validation]. For example, toxic masculinity spreads a message that men should be the ‘providers/breadwinners’, which more often than not, conditions men to equate their worth to their job, leading to overworking.”

A majoritively patriarchal society has always encouraged the concept of the (often male) breadwinner – someone who must maintain financial and social stability in the name of the nuclear family and heteronormativity.

Now that we are seeing less and less necessity for the nuclear family, and more emphasis on living irrespective of societal “rules”, it appears the need to be a head-strong perfectionist and hard worker is something lingering among working adults, as if we still feel a need to imitate this breadwinner role.

In this sense, perhaps the “girlboss” isn’t the iconic feminist symbol we think it is. Rather, it is a replication of the stereotypical, work-obsessed male presence in respectable positions. But in that replication we are also seeing the continuation of unhealthy and obsessive attitudes towards success and power.

Toxic masculinity is called toxic masculinity for a reason – it encourages these unhealthy obsessions and anxieties about high-performance and stability; why would we want to encourage and applaud this behaviour when women do it? This isn’t feminism, this is just a means of allowing more people to experience burnout and self-doubt at the hands of capitalism, to replicate and challenge a system of gender roles that our society has long outgrown.

A sense of losing control of boundaries and routine in the pandemic has also proven to be a breeding ground for these anxieties and behaviours to fester and flourish. Business psychologist Lee Chambers explained that “in times of uncertainty, we look to generate progress and feel we have a plan and pathway amongst the chaos”.

Thomas Roulet, and organisational sociologist based at the University of Cambridge, also shared this view, adding that “in some of [his] research, [he] found that during that shift [to remote working], although people were more productive on the shorter run and more engaged with work, they would be more likely to multi-task, work after hours, and text their colleagues after hours too.”

In short, the blending of your work space with your home space made it incredibly hard to just ‘switch off’ from working, and to make time for yourself.

The early lockdowns also saw social media bombarded with toxic productivity: from learning new languages to starting up a new business, the general message was that if you were not using this “free time” to your advantage, you were wasting a period of potential that you would not get back. For many of us, just getting out of bed and going for a walk was more than enough when the world around you was so bleak and uncertain – lockdowns were a time for self-care, not hyper-fixating on career prospects and opportunities.

Being proud of your success is one thing. Making others feel negatively about themselves for feeling confused and unmotivated during a period of such drastic change and anxiety is another entirely.

The concept of the “girlboss”, and similarly the urge for success encouraged through toxic masculinity, also seems blind to class and privilege. Many of us will never have the “same 24 hours” as Molly-Mae, or become a “self-made millionaire” like Kim Kardashian after deciding to “get off our arses” one day, because we were not born into a family of privilege and wealth.

To pretend that we are all destined for fame and money will do no one any favours – it will only add depth to the disappointment we feel when our lives do not look the same as celebrities’, despite the fact that we work ourselves to the bone. The success we should be celebrating is finding contentment and balance in our lives, not striving to be better than others, or conforming to hustle culture.

Irrespective of intention, the concept of the “girlboss” today seems to be little more than just another phrase that enforces gender binaries, and encourages behaviour that sees other aspects of women’s lives – such as their relationships, health and hobbies – go neglected.

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Instead of proposing competition to the patriarchal, powerful male figure, we should be proposing gender neutral ways for all people to be successful without having to sacrifice their hobbies, happiness and wellbeing in the process – which is currently an occurrence for all genders.

In order to truly be a “boss”, we need to acknowledge the unattainability of what these concepts currently entail, and prioritise finding healthy, gender neutral ways of finding success and fulfilment while also maintaining relationships with ourselves and those around us. After all, how successful can you truly be if you have had to sacrifice fragments of who you are as a person along the way?

We, as people, are a continual work in progress. There is no correct chronology or timeline in which we should be achieving things or meeting set milestones, and it is time that we stopped pretending that life is a one-size-fits-all experience.