Here's my own personal edge on this 'Ban Bossy' movement: I'm 16 years old, so I'm young enough to remember being a part of the elementary school age group this movement talks about, and I'm /hopefully/ old enough to construct a coherent argument against it.
The 'Ban Bossy' movement argues that we should ban the word 'bossy' from our collective vocabulary so that we do not impede (young women, specifically) people from becoming leaders. I'm all for women's rights and gender equality in the United States, and I participate in a feminist alliance club at my High School, but this movement is nit-picking and tone-policing stretched to the extreme. The idea that women are prevented from being leaders in society because people allegedly call girls 'bossy' in elementary school is a gross oversimplification of a complex social issue involving multiple social and cultural factors. This theory that if our society bans this word young women will grow up to be better leaders is a distraction from real social issues affecting women today.
First and foremost, 'leadership' is not a thing in elementary schools. When I went through the elementary school grades, the extent my student-to-student interaction involved sports, games, and other usual stuff that kids do. In the classroom, we'd take tests and learn math and write essays and that was that. When people needed help or redirection, the teacher was generally responsible for that. There were no opportunities for 'student leadership' because it's a loving elementary school. What I believe the article refers to as 'leadership' are the kids at my elementary school who would try to play teacher and tell an adult every time one of us threw a rock or poked someone in the eye with a sharp stick. Naturally, they weren't very popular since it pissed people off. They were labeled 'bossy' because they asserted authority over people who they didn't technically have authority over. But the most important point I want to make is that 'bossiness' is gender-neutral. The kids who were labeled bossy in my elementary school weren't strictly female or male, they were just annoying kids trying to enforce playground-style martial law on others.
I gtg, and I'll continue this rant later.
