Is the girlboss out? Three years ago, Britt Robertson graced our screens for a single season as Sophia Amoruso in Netflix’s widely criticized, Girlboss. The series, based on Amoruso’s book of the same name, about the meteoric rise of her apparel brand Nasty Gal, led to mainstreaming of the #girlboss. Over the last few weeks, several high-profile female founders have stepped down — the Wing’s Audrey Gelman, Refinery29’s Christene Barberich, Reformation’s Yael Aflalo and most recently, Away Luggage’s co-CEO Stephanie Korey. 2020 has not been kind to the girlboss.
I’ve always been curious about the girlboss and what she represents to entrepreneurially-minded millennials. How has this once aspirational late twenties or early thirties, stylish woman, at the helm of an often unicorn status brand, come to represent something toxic to the very women she claims to serve? Is she a symbol of unapologetic ambition, drive, and innovation? Or is she just another scammer, masquerading as a role model for her generation? If we are to dismantle the girlboss, we must dismantle the toxic culture that created her.
To better understand the girlboss we need to be clear on the definition. Not all women in powerful positions or at the head of companies are girlbosses. The girlboss is typically a young, millennial (since the term became mainstream in 2014), who through sheer hustle has built the next big millennial brand. Her company is purpose-driven (at least that’s what the marketing copy says), is a disruptor in an existing niche, is digital-first and sells through Instagram. These women have raised millions of dollars in capital and their products are marketed by top influencers and even celebrities —think Thinx, Glossier, The Wing, Away and of course Nasty Gal.
Leigh Stein’s article The End of The Girlboss is Here, examines the trope by calling out problematic girlbosses. She wonders if these women that espouse pseudo-feminist values through their brands are simply capitalists that know how to market to women who want to feel good about their purchasing choices. She concludes that perhaps we are looking for change in the wrong places —“woke capitalism lets the elites maintain status quo while paying lip service to the demands of activists, and as ethical consumers, millennials get to feel like they’re making a difference every time they go shopping.” According to Stein, the girlboss didn’t dismantle the system, she thrived within it. Except the girlboss didn’t set out to dismantle the system. She was simply a person with enough drive, ambition, and hustle that she made the system work for her.
Forbes contributor, Aliza Licht recently wrote a rebuttal to Stein’s article titled Girlboss May be Over, But The Woman Founder Is Here To Stay. Licht’s primary critique of Stein’s article is that she lumps women entrepreneurs together and paints a negative picture of ambition and hustle. Licht argues that many of the girlbosses Stein talks about never claimed to be feminists or take up the mantle for their generation and that Stein has fundamentally ignored diverse perspectives of purpose-driven CEOs, women of color and Black CEOs who are trying to build a company and make a profit while upholding feminist values.
Both Stein and Licht are right, but they both skirt around the real issue, which is that the girlboss is simply another symptom of a toxic business ethos and not the cause. If we are tearing down the girlboss, we need to tear down the systems that create bad leaders and reward toxic people in the name of profit.
The CEOs named in Stein’s article are problematic for sure and they should be held accountable. But they are not the first and nor will they be the last executives to abuse employees, lie to consumers about the “ethical” nature of their products and make decisions that are ultimately for the good of the bottom line. Many of these women’s companies have received hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital funding, with the expectation that profits will be returned many times over. Some of them have not received executive coaching or proper guidance on the ins and outs of building a business, scaling production, operations and people management. Their businesses need to grow quickly with no room for failure or margin for error. They have no choice but to espouse growth mindsets, innovation, and empowerment in their mission statements to rally employees to their cause — especially when asking them to work evenings, weekends and on Christmas.
Let’s look at the example of Away CEO and cofounder, Stephanie Korey, who was the subject of a 2019 Verge investigative takedown Emotional Baggage. The article delves deep into first hand accounts from Away employees on how Korey repeatedly expected people to work endless hours to the point of burn out and exhaustion, publicly called junior employees out on the company’s firm-wide Slack channel, fired employees for voicing concerns, withheld time off and work from home days and generally acted like an all-round office bully, using her power and status to instill fear and embarrassment in her subordinates.
The employees on record have gone so far as to say that it was a huge blow because they had looked up to the brand and to its founders (two millennial women, one of color) and the ideals they were sold when they joined the company. The article went viral, forcing Steph Korey to step away from the limelight to “reflect” and Away to hire a “co-CEO” to work alongside her. Korey has gone on record to say she received bullying comments on Twitter, some going so far as to suggest that she abort her pregnancy.
A quick look at Away’s financials shows that in 2019, the luggage manufacturer reached a $1.4 billion valuation after raising $100 million in the capital. Primary investors included Wellington Capital Management and Global Founders Capital. Co-founders Stephanie Korey and Jen Rubio quickly became part of the billion-dollar business club, making Forbes’ Top 30 Under 30 and Next Billion Dollar Startups lists. Imagine the pressure to scale and to succeed on the shoulders of these twenty-somethings. When the eyes of the business world are on you, profiles in the world’s most prestigious publications are being written about you, brands are pitching you, is failure an option? Should Korey be held accountable for her poor management style? Absolutely. Should she be vilified and told to abort her unborn child? Absolutely not.
The world has tolerated bad behavior in the name of financial success and growth from men for decades. America was built on the backs of working-class people supporting the so-called vision of the Henry Fords and Sam Waltons. More recently, our hyper-connected, smart-phone obsessed world is thankful to the Jobses and the Zuckerbergs and the Bezoses. Why is it that Steve Jobs, famous for abusing employees, not giving to charity, and withholding money from his own child is heralded as a visionary, but Korey is told to terminate her pregnancy? Why are we so eager to not just accept but praise bad behavior in white cis-men, chalking it up to simply “this is how business is done,” but the same ruthlessness in women or minorities is toxic? Why do we enjoy and participate in the takedown of a successful woman who is simply participating in the systems that were created by generations of men before her? Why are we criticizing girlbosses and women entrepreneurs instead of the toxicity of a capitalist mindset that values growth and profit over everything?
In a Forbes article The Unfair Treatment of Away Cofounder And CEO Steph Korey, Jack Kelly hits the nail on the head when he says “It appears that the Verge and other online magazines lack practical firsthand insight into the realities of corporate life for both executives and employees.” He also acknowledges the gender difference saying that Korey’s verbal abuse of a junior employee who mailed out a defective item to a client would have been praised if it had been delivered by a man. “If a male boss had said the same thing, it wouldn’t make the news at all. People would applaud his strong devotion to his customers and his meticulous care about the integrity of the product offered,” he says.
While Kelly’s article explains the unfairness of Korey’s treatment, however, it fails to address the deeper systemic problem of corporate greed. Kelly’s take simply seems to be that Korey was doing what she had to do given the pressures of scaling a multi-million-dollar business and growing a brand. If naïve, wide-eyed employees had bought into the brand’s aspirational feel hook, line, and sinker, well that’s their problem for having unrealistic expectations. He says “Of course, there will be pressure, deadlines, and stress. Welcome to the work world!” His solution — Away should have hired an experienced manager to help the two women from the get-go. Never once does he question whether a system that creates this kind of pressure in the first place, whose real values are not reflected in the glossy ads on Instagram but in the bottom line, should be a system worth valuing over health and wellness of people. Never once does he question whether an ethos of being “customer-obsessed” as Away claims to be will take a toll on the well-being of its customer experience team, who at one point were answering up to 1000 customer emails a day. In Kelly’s own words, its just “a nice suitcase with wheels and other add-ons. It’s a utilitarian product and not a cure for cancer.” Would it be the end of the world if a customer’s email is answered in 24 hours as opposed to 4 hours (Away’s benchmark for answering complaints)? Cures for cancer take much longer. But hey, prioritizing wealth over people is “just business.” It’s the American Dream.
When there are shocks to existing systems, as there have been throughout 2020, women and minorities suffer disproportionately. In March, scooter sharing start-up Bird’s CEO Travis VanderZanden, had a “disembodied female voice” lay off 400 employees over a two-minute zoom call due to the financial fallout from COVID-19. In June, The Man Repeller CEO, Leandra Medine Cohen faced allegations of discrimination and criticism for the lack of diversity on her site. Take a guess as to which one of these two CEOs still has their job. As the pandemic continues to ravage cities, it’s worth considering if supporting wealth over people is the way forward. Is a hyper-competitive environment, where scaling is prioritized at any cost, the way to grow a sustainable brand and workplace culture? As long as things remain status-quo there will be another #girlboss or her younger sister, waiting in the wings to coin the next problematic hashtag.
