On Being a BossBabe, GirlBoss or Fempreneur
With Netflix’s super push of the loose — very loose — retelling of Sophia Amaruso’s rise in fame — and income — in GirlBoss, I have been re-examining the labels I choose for myself.
As an aside — I actually reject most labels other than my name — even gender-based as I have found labels are limiting and confine me into a box I don’t ever care to be in. Damn society and their fondness for putting people in happy little confined boxes.
There has been an incredible rise in labels for entrepreneurs who just happen to be women. They sound like Mompreneur, Fempreneur, LadyBoss, BossBitch, BossBabe but they also sound like a desperate need to let people know you’re actually a boss.
Ok ok — I get why we have that desperate need. Women only make up 4% of Fortune’s Top 500 Companies CEO list. It’s actually down from 2014. So I get that it is a bit rare in the business world to have all them lady bosses running the place but in Canada alone small businesses are very much run by women.
- 35.6% of all self-employed people in Canada are women.
- 47% of all small and medium-sized enterprises are run by women
- 51% of all Aboriginal-led small and medium sized enterprises are owned by women. (The Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, 2013)
Now it’s no surprise small and medium sized businesses don’t get the same recognition as running a Fortune 500 company despite the only difference is the F-500 CEOs probably have a board of directors, support staff and many Veeps/upper management helping them. A small business owner sometimes only has themselves and maybe a small staff.
So how can we get recognition that a woman is running a business other attaching some sort of cute moniker to the title of Boss, Entrepreneur or Founder?
Easy. Start your own business. Make it profitable. Get on Board of Directors. Be vocal, be abundant, be you. Without the label.
