The Word: Bossy

Bossy. An adjective that is defined by fond of giving people orders; domineering.

When you hear the word next to it’s true definition, it doesn’t sound as bad as it is, however, growing up as a girl with any sense of leadership, the word ‘Bossy’ has haunted you from the beginning of time.

I’ve always had a sense of being the leader, from a young age, if there needed to be organization, someone to assign roles and get the job done, I would always step up. Nine out of Ten times, my team comes out highly successful.

This has translated over the course of my life, when I entered my high school’s magnet program called New Tech. It’s a new way of learning, where you teach yourselves and fellow classmates on a certain topic through project based learning. Through groups of four, you have three weeks to complete the assigned project.

Pretty easy if you ask me, as someone who was used to heavy workloads coming from a humanities and STEAM math and science background.

We were asked to assign each person a role, leader, lesson, time manger and creative director. Naturally, I always take up the leader role, often being nominated for it, many group members know I lead my group to success time and time again.

Over the past three years, I have picked up more slack from my group members than you could possibly think, from writing 10 page essays in a day, to completing a whole art project in a few hours, all at the sake of me being the chief in command and not wanting my grade to suffer.

Throughout my life, I would constantly be told that I am bossy, especially when I would take a leadership role.

All I would hear is “you’re being pretty bossy” “stop being bossy” “being bossy isn’t a good look on you.”

What does that even mean?

I would constantly be riddled with these phrases, sometimes behind my back, however when it came to the group I lead winning a competition, getting the highest grade in class or even presenting to important people. I never heard any complaints.

What I did hear was praises, or when I would be absent from a class, my team would fall apart without my leadership, even though they already had their assigned jobs, I was needed there to keep everyone on task.

All this negative ridiculing led me to realize from a young age, if the roles were reversed, if my assigned birth gender was male, I would have never been called bossy a day in my life. No, never. Instead I would be called “a natural leader” or “commanding a role.”

Being a male means you are never subjected to any of these harmful words when you take up the commander role. It’s a born male privilege.

It is the sad truth. Men are taught how to not recognize male privilege from a young age. It’s the world we live in, with there being bias in the workplace between genders, the pay wage gap and even unpaid maternity leave. However, that’s another blog post for another time, you don’t want to see 'Political Wren' this early on, I feel like we’re growing a good relationship so far.

This post is about the word bossy, and it is still going to be used for a long time to belittle any woman, lady or even girl when they take on the leadership role. I’m here to say it’s okay, because we know the real reason they use those words. Women are strong, can be natural born leaders, and be dominating in a workplace.

Bossy. Those two symbols used to haunt me, make me want to change my ways and become more docile. However, I taught myself that being ‘bossy’ is not a bad thing. In fact, if I no longer let people try to break me down, change my character, then there is no issue being a leader. It’s what I plan to be in my life, a boss, the base word of bossy.

Thus, don’t change your ways for toxic negative people, be La Jefa honey, a true lady boss.