"Don't be so bossy!" "Nobody likes a bossy kid." I'm sure if you ever went to school from the age of four to eight you heard these two phrases and many more to the same extent.
But how true are these statements? Sure, nobody likes when Susie won't let Mary play with the blocks because she's doing it "wrong". But in high school, college and the real world doesn't it kind of payoff to be bossy? To be able to lead others? Isn't "leadership skills" something businesses always look for on resumes?
So when does "bossy" become "leadership skills"? And have you noticed that most of the children being called bossy are young girls? According to the Corpus of Contemporary American English, young girls are over twice as likely to be called bossy than young boys. And by the time girls have reached middle school their self-esteem will have dropped three and a half times more than boys (Education Week). After seventh grade their confidence in their academics will take another dramatic drop; in elementary school 49 percent of girls take pride in their school work but by the time they reach high school only 17 percent feel proud of their academics.
What happened between elementary school and high school? Why has confidence from elementary to high school dropped over 10 percent more for girls than boys? What can explain this massive confidence gap?
Maybe it's genetics but maybe it's something more. Maybe it's the fact that the word bossy that so many young girls hear every time they try to lead literally means "inclined to domineer; liking to order people around", which is not a positive definition, it’s demeaning and disparaging. And the connotations around this word are even worse. The word bossy is dismissive and it teaches young girls that they need to be silent, not leaders, to remain unheard. Because when a boy takes charge of a situation he is a leader, but girls are just bossy.
By telling young girls not to take charge and to remain silent we are setting them up for failure. And it shows; according to the American Progress Center, in 2015 only 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 companies had female CEO's. In the finance industry women hold only 12.4 percent of executive offices even though they make up 54.2 percent of the total work force. It is not a coincidence that boys and girls are almost equally confident in kindergarten and elementary school but then in middle and high school girls' confidence plummets while their male counterparts' self-esteem suffers less than half as much. How can we expect girls to be confident in their leaderships skills when they are shut down at every corner?
Instead of simply dismissing Susie and telling her to not be "bossy", why don't we explain to Susie why the way she was helping Mary was not effective? And I understand that you can't sit down a five-year-old child and explain to them how to be a successful leader but you can explain how to communicate calmly and confidently. Maybe this open line of communication will help all children learn to speak to adults and each other in a clearer manner, thus setting them up for success in high school, college, and eventually their careers. Together we can form a generation of women who are comfortable in their leadership skills and feel confident enough to succeed in their careers.
And to quote our Queen
Sincerely,
~A Girl Who Was Called Bossy
