Gender Politics: Entry #2

Ban the word "Bossy"

Apparently, there's a campaign that is organised by Sheryl Sandberg, an american entrepreneur and Chief operating officer (COO) of Facebook to ban the word bossy over the belief it would discourage young girls from pursuing a career that involves leadership as she had been called bossy when she was younger and it offended her. Right, there are worst words to be called other than bossy and they should be banned, but they're not as people still say them. Sure there are consequences for people who say such offensive words, but it will not stop them from saying them because of a thing called freedom of speech and the fact that many people in the world do not care as long as they express their opinions of used to help describe another person. 

So far, Sheryl is an amazing and successful businesswoman with a high position in Facebook, even though she was called bossy at a young age, did she let the word bossy discourage her from becoming a success? Obviously no, because words do not dictate how an individual leads their life, neither should it define who that individual is but defined by their actions and the motive behind them. I believe banning the word bossy is her way of trying to configure society to conform to her point of view at the cost of depriving others of their own freedom of speech and other civil liberates, which i find kinda selfish because she wants everything to change to suit her own point of view and everyone to agree with her, starting with the word bossy. By the looks of it, Sheryl is being bossy herself, considering the irony when she is trying to ban the word "bossy" and pushing people to agree with her.

I also believe Sheryl's idea of the 'ban bossy' campaign is in fact illustrating her disappointment with the numbers of women in leadership roles which are low compared to that of men and desires more women. I can see her point, but not all women and men  are born with the necessary ability to be leaders, neither they are interested in pursuing leadership roles as it depends on their personnel preferences and Sheryl wants more women to reach her own expectations to satisfy her own agenda as she does not speak for all women and not all women should be successful in her own image and only their own.

On second thought, maybe the campaign on banning the word bossy is nothing to do with banning the word itself, rather demolishing the double standards in regards to gender in society where the word bossy is being used. For example, if a man is called bossy, it is assumed that he is a leader, but if a woman is called "bossy", she is being mean or being seen as bully or a "bitch" and that is far worst than "bossy". Fair enough, this could discourage women from pursuing leadership roles as it would question their ability as a leader and be concerned on how others would think of them. 

However, Sheryl must realise men are likely to be discouraged from pursuing leadership roles if they too are called "bossy" as they don't want to be seen as mean or a bully or being called "asshole" or a "dick" as those are worst names to call men when they appear to be "bossy" towards people. If Sheryl believes the word "bossy" would discourage women from pursing leadership roles, perhaps they are not suited be leaders if they let trivial things like being called "bossy" should prevent them from succeeding as Sheryl herself did not, after all she is a successful businesswoman. 

I believe the campaign to ban the word bossy is pointless, yet irrelevant because people are going to keep on using that word because of freedom of speech and the word bossy isn't exactly offensive, neither should it be a big deal and people should not let words define their entire being or prevent them from wanting to pursue careers in leadership.