Now that Halloween has passed and the holiday
season encroaches upon us, my anticipation for
a relatively new “holiday” tradition has begun.
Like many other Spotify users, early November is
when I begin both eagerly awaiting and bracing
myself for Spotify’s 2021 Wrapped. Launched by
the music streaming giant in 2015 and originally
called “Year in Music,” Spotify Wrapped gives
listeners a summary of their streaming habits over
the past year. And social media sharing is integral to
Wrapped’s marketing model, since Spotify provides
graphics about listening stats which can be added to
Instagram stories or shared on Twitter.
This social aspect is why some users, including
myself, may feel a slight sense of dread as the New
Year approaches: What embarrassing realities
might Spotify expose about my music taste? I didn’t
listen to that many “Glee” songs this year, did I?
What about all those late-night study sessions spent
singing along to Broadway show tunes? Or, for those
of us who pride ourselves on our “alternative” tastes,
could we be surprised to find Wrapped reveals our
listening habits to be a bit, well, basic?
It’s possible that a few cringe-worthy tracks will
end up in my Wrapped playlist. But the musical
shame I’m most bracing myself for this Wrapped
season is not a question, but instead a certainty: the
English rock band the Smiths will definitely repeat
as my most-played artist of the year.
My shame about the Smiths has nothing to do
with concerns about having cheesy, basic or “bad”
taste. They’re considered one of the most influential
bands of the 1980s and British music website
“NME” ranks their album The Queen is Dead as
the greatest album ever. Beyond their sound, they
were subversive and anti-establishment during
an especially conservative era in British politics,
utilizing their influence to challenge then-Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher. The working title for
The Queen is Dead, in fact, was Margaret on the
Guillotine. More personally, as someone who has at
times felt isolated by my convictions about animal
exploitation, their 1985 track Meat is Murder is a
frequent comfort, and one of the only animal rights
songs I’ve found to be a pleasant and powerful listen
rather than overly self-congratulatory.
Clearly, the Smiths were an important and high-
caliber band, both musically and politically. So if it’s
not embarrassing taste I’m concerned about, what
exactly is my issue with the Smiths topping my
Spotify Wrapped once again this year?
It boils down to one name, a name that has
probably already invaded the mind of anyone
familiar with the Smiths: Morrissey.
Stephen Morrissey, mononymously referred to
by his last name, served as the Smiths frontman
and is responsible for the lyrics that have resonated
with so many from the 1980s through today. This
includes those on “Bigmouth Strikes Again,” which
Morrissey wrote to poke fun at the music media
for overanalyzing everything he said. In recent
years, however, “Bigmouth” has become an apt
characterization of Morrissey. And I’d wager pretty
much every Smiths fan desperately wishes he would
just shut up.
Unfortunately, his big mouth strikes again and
again. For example, during a performance on “The
Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” in 2019,
Morrissey wore a “For Britain” badge, solidifying
his support for the far-right political party founded
by anti-Islamic activist Anne Marie Waters. (Even
former right-wing politician Nigel Farage, known
as Mr. Brexit, has characterized her supporters
as “Nazis and racists.”) He has made disparaging
comments about British politicians of color,
characterized Chinese people as a “subspecies” and
claimed everyone “prefers their own race.” And
during the #MeToo movement, Morrissey victim-
blamed the survivors of Kevin Spacey and Harvey
Weinstein.
The Guardian writer Tim Jonze argues that
evidence of Morrissey’s violent views were there
in the 1980s, such as his distaste for “Black modern
music.” Still, his takes are jarring and almost absurd
to anyone familiar with his lyrics or personal
life. Morrissey is the son of Irish immigrants.
He is also a product of Manchester, arguably the
prototypical “working-class” city. He wrote lines
such as “I am human and I need to be loved / just
like everybody else does.” He embraced sexual and
gender ambiguity; for example, he often performed
with a bunch of gladiolus flowers, a stereotypically
feminine object, hanging out of his back pocket.
More than anything, his lyrics were often dedicated
to feeling unheard and uncared for by the world.
How could somebody who seemed to stand for
so many of the right things, to be an advocate for
the marginalized, turn out to be so wrong and
misguided?
Perhaps there isn’t an answer to that question.
But for any Smiths fan that finds themselves as
vehemently opposed to Morrissey as I do (which
should be every Smiths fan), there’s a more
important question to ask ourselves: Well, what am
I meant to do now?
This question is not unique to fans of the Smiths.
It’s difficult to completely avoid the works of
every controversial creator, especially since they
exist within all forms of content. Maybe John
Lennon or Michael Jackson will feature in your
Spotify Wrapped. Maybe Woody Allen or Quentin
Tarantino directed one of your favorite films.
The first time I can remember considering
my career was browsing through the games on
Barbie.com.
I was 5, maybe 6, squished into a chair with
my best friend during a playdate. We pecked at
the keyboard with pointer fingers still sticky
from snack time, until a glimmering pink
screen asked us the fateful question:
Which Barbie do you want to be?
We had myriad options to choose from:
Hairdresser Barbie, Fashion Designer Barbie,
Sports Barbie, Makeup Artist Barbie, Doctor
Barbie, Salesgirl Barbie, Lifeguard Barbie,
Schoolgirl Barbie — the list went on. And these
days, that list is even longer; Barbie’s become a
writer, an astronaut, a small business owner
and president, among other things.
In some ways, the breadth of her career
choices is empowering. This toy, a staple that
many girls have looked up to for generations, is
telling them that they can have any career they
aspire to. At the same time, Barbie is offering
them education on what some of those options
can be. That’s a really noble, and important,
message.
But it’s also Barbie.
Despite all of the aspirational messaging,
she’s still a plastic, stylishly-dressed, perfectly-
coiffed standard we’re telling girls to live up
to. Even if Barbie is no longer always white,
blonde, blue-eyed and stick-thin (which she
still is the majority of the time), her main appeal
continues to lie in dressing her up and playing
with her hair. Her main draw is still her looks.
And somewhere beneath it all, even with the
countless impressive careers she’s had over
the years, Barbie is what she always has been:
superficial. Making her a pediatrician or salon
owner or athlete won’t cover up the fact that her
“progress” feels a little, well, fake.
The new Barbie is what some might call a
girlboss.
“Girlboss” is defined as “to make something
or someone appear as a feminist idol or
inspiration for profit, despite the numerous
flaws of the person.” The term was coined
by Sophia Amoruso, founder of the fast
fashion website Nasty Gal, who wrote a 2014
autobiography titled #GIRLBOSS. Amoruso’s
literal rags-to-riches storyline was inspiring,
and she gained a massive following with many
young professionals looking up to her. That is,
until Nasty Gal filed for bankruptcy protection
in 2015, citing “toxic” workplace culture and
leadership issues.
After the fallout of the ordeal, the term
slowly became a less aspirational mindset and
more of a backhanded compliment. My editor,
whom I would characterize as “take-no-shit,
badass bitch,” admitted that being called
“girlboss” makes her uncomfortable and that
she takes it as more of an insult. The girlboss
went from an example of ambition and hustle
to a personification of tokenism and unhealthy
attitudes. University of Michigan Rackham
student Megan Kelly, who studies sociology
with a focus on gender and work explained
how this developed to me over Zoom.
“There’s just a broader sort of idea of, what
are the consequences of saying that the way
that omen should succeed at work, is to do
more, the sort of the ‘lean in’ type of thing,”
Kelly said. “Part of what’s important about that
is that it’s not just individuals. It’s
built into the way we structure
jobs, the way we think
about work in the United
States,
and
therefore
encouraging people to
sort of invest themselves
more is essentially saying
that the way to succeed
is to put more into
that system and it
doesn’t
really
do
anything to address
the root causes. That’s
problematic
because
no
matter how hard you lean in,
that’s not going to fix those
systemic inequalities.”
The
girlboss
essentially
became
the
early-2000s
postfeminist caricature of the
career woman. You know the
type: the queen of the stiletto-
heeled
walk-and-talk,
she’s
working 24/7 (she’s the glue
holding the
office
together), constantly cradles her phone
between her shoulder and her ear so she can
multitask and has a stylish designer wardrobe
far beyond what her salary could realistically
buy. She’s probably played by Katherine Heigl,
and there is a very strong chance that, at some
point in the movie, she falls in love with (a) her
boss, or (b) a man she meets because of the job
she’s always at. And just like that, with a wave of
her ever-present PalmPilot or BlackBerry and a
click of her sky-high, sexy-but-still-professional
heels, the girlboss fixed everything that was
wrong with our workplace culture. The
girlboss gets her career and her happy ending.
She didn’t need feminism anymore. All the
progress has been made.
In part, the girlboss became that because the
goal we gave her was impossible. (Unattainable
goals for women? Groundbreaking.) We
wanted the girlboss to fix everything that was
wrong in our workplaces: the competitiveness,
the workaholism, the fraternity-style sexist
collegiality, the racism. The girlboss was
supposed to represent the change in the
workplace, but more than that, she was
supposed to bring that change to the
workplace.
Instead, she
was right at
home there within
all of these workaholic,
toxic patriarchal structures,
and we couldn’t forgive her for
it. Instead of changing the system, the
girlboss just took on those traditional
leadership roles and claimed the problem
had been solved by the nature of her
being there. But, by deeming her “girlboss”
instead of just “boss,” we kept her separate,
somehow othered, in the workplace world
that she’d become a part of.
“It gets wrapped up with her being a
woman in a position of authority,” Kelly
said. “(Girlboss is) an attempt to reconcile
femininity and being like,
‘Yes, I can fulfill our
cultural ideals of
femininity,
and at the
same
time, I can have a powerful position at work.
I can combine those two things successfully.’
Yeah, when you criticize that term, of course,
you’re kind of suggesting that those two things
are not compatible in some way. But I also think
that there are reasons to think based on our
culture that those two things are already not
viewed as compatible.”
Even in the spaces created by, and
theoretically for, girlbosses, the problems
remain, proving that the change promised
by the girlboss was surface-level at best and
negligent at worst. Nasty Gal had a toxic
environment.
Reformation
and
Glossier
(girlboss-founded
clothing
and
makeup
lines, respectively) had thinly disguised but
ever-present racism. Those brands are still
thriving (at least for now), whether it’s because
of their vocal commitment to change and
accountability in the wake of these stories,
or because of their widespread popularity.
Interestingly, though, the viral fashion blog
Man Repeller folded after former employees
called out their ex-(girl)boss for performative
activism; it likely won’t be the last company,
female-founded or otherwise, to shutter under
increased scrutiny for these issues.
These cases made one thing clear, though:
The girlboss didn’t change the system. She
was a product of its benevolence, and as a
result, she became a part of the system. We
found the chance she affected insufficient,
as we realized that not only was she a part of
the broken system, but also that she wasn’t as
representative of us as we thought (or hoped)
she was.
She was white, cis-gendered, straight and
very often wealthy, and eventually, the actions
of many so-called (even sometimes self-titled)
girlbosses reminded us that her gender identity
alone did not ensure she would fight for change
that would include everyone.
“It’s possible for a woman to be both a
feminist and to be racist,” Kelly said. “It is
possible for people to be working towards
something that feels liberatory for them as a
white woman, and for those things to not
actually represent or perhaps even be
harmful to women who are not white,
and so it could be that they’re just
completely blinkered to the fact
that the feminist ideals that they
are advocating for represent
their own experience as white
women.”
In the end, the girlboss went
from iconic to ironic. Maybe
that’s just a product of our culture, because
these days, we’re making everything ironic,
even (maybe especially) things that started
out sincerely. Or it could be a generational
gap: girlboss was a millennial ideal, but a
Gen Z insult. So while millennials may think
of it as a compliment, Gen Z-ers are taken
aback by its less-than-shiny implications. But
for ever-increasing numbers of us, girlboss
falls somewhere on the spectrum between
backhanded compliment and outright insult.
And let’s not lose sight of the fact that in
this use of the term, we’re still denigrating
ambitious women in the professional space. I
don’t mean that the problematic examples this
article discusses should be forgiven because
they’re women, nor do I mean to minimize their
very real shortcomings. But by using “girlboss”
as an insult, are we implying that it’s degrading
to be compared to career-driven women?
Are we implying that that’s a bad thing for a
woman to be? There’s something off-putting
about insulting someone by comparing them to
career-driven women, like we still see ambition
as a bad thing for a woman to have.
“The question is, can we criticize the parts
of the individual’s actions that are problematic
without criticizing her as without, without
also criticizing her for being a woman who is
ambitious in her career and has pursued certain
goals?” Kelly said.
Ultimately, there are so many complexities
lurking beneath the pale-pink, boldface-type
package of the #girlboss. It’s a tangled web
she’s been woven into, and it’s unclear whether
unraveling it is even possible or desirable. The
girlboss has come to represent so much toxicity,
but we still want — we still need — the change she
claimed to champion and represent. But how do
we get there without becoming something of her
ourselves? It seems to be yet another impossible
task set by the patriarchy, now in the looming
shadow of our past problems.
In the face of this seemingly perpetual
conundrum, I’d like to hold onto a little of that
girlboss optimism. Don’t get me wrong —
she was unhealthily committed to her job, to
outdated, harmful power structures and ideals
and her empowerment was often exclusionary.
I don’t endorse any of that. But at the same
time, the girlboss was so sure she could make
a difference, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t
envy her in that regard. In the end, the girlboss
isn’t the answer to the problem (in some ways,
she even helped perpetuate it). But maybe,
somewhere in her story, there’s a lesson to be
learned on how to solve it.
Gaslight, gatekeep: How “girlboss” went from aspirational to insulting
My favorite high school French teacher,
Madame Orlowsky, began each school year
by telling her students a story. She told us to
close our eyes and picture ourselves within
the narrative she was about to tell.
The tale went like this: You are out
camping in the middle of the woods when you
hear a rustle of branches nearby. Suddenly, a
huge bear enters the clearing with two cubs
following in her footsteps. She immediately
sets her eyes on you, recognizing a threat
to the safety of her children. The bear gets
visibly more aggressive as her protective
instincts activate.
Possible plans of action flood through
your head, common dilemmas of fight-or-
flight: Are you going to freeze up in fear?
Should you run away?
Ultimately, you decide to stand your
ground. You stand up, put your hands on
your hips, and tell the bear, “I’m no threat
to you, and you don’t scare me.” You make it
clear that you have established a temporary
space for yourself, and though you don’t
mean her or her cubs any harm, you are not
going to pack up your trip because of a single
brush-up with danger. You remain confident
despite any distress you might feel. The bear
recognizes your self-assuredness and her
aggression subsides. She walks to the edge
of the clearing, her children in tow, and
disappears back into the woods.
The metaphor in Madame Orlowsky’s
story was clear. Her fictitious tale highlighted
how challenges are unpredictable and
inevitable. They force you to reflect, to assess
your situation and determine how you will
endure it. If you approach the circumstances
with conviction, rather than weighing
yourself down with panic, your problems
may just walk away.
By beginning her classes each year with
this story — even before cracking open a
single page of a French textbook — our
teacher encouraged an atmosphere of
fortitude and positivity in the classroom. I
recognized the significance of her narrative
upon hearing it for the first time.
I would not learn the depth of its real-life
applicability until much later.
***
Gathered in a clearing, me, my parents
and the rest of our hiking group began
walking single-file onto the path, folding us
into a world of towering pines. The Alaskan
wilderness seemed incredibly alive, the
rushing of the river and singing of birds —
the constant soundtrack of our day at Katmai
National Park and Preserve. As we walked,
we talked about the exciting prospect of
seeing some of the most thrilling wildlife in
North America: the grizzly bears.
My brother’s baseball team was
participating in several tournaments
throughout Alaska. My parents, wanting
to both explore the legendary Alaskan
landscape and escape from the endless
baseball games, brought me on a day trip
to the remote national park. We’d been to
Alaska over a decade before, but on our
second trip, my mother made a visit to
Katmai a priority. It was almost guaranteed
that you would see at least a handful of
large grizzly bears gathered at the river
that ran through the park. The trails from
the rangers’ lodge led you right to the
Brooks River, where you could see bears
catching live salmon jumping out from the
waterfalls. The prospect of witnessing this
feat of nature astounded me; it seemed like
a scene out of “Brother Bear” rather than a
real-life possibility.
My head was filled with a mix of
anticipation, elation and nervousness.
Our group had just finished our bear
safety training in which park rangers
simultaneously
emphasized
the
magnificence of the animals as well as the
necessity of extreme caution. We were in
their home, and one stupid human action
could result in alarming consequences for all.
I was at the front of our small procession,
looking up at the canopies while keeping
my eyes peeled for unexpected animals.
I breathed in the fresh air, reveling in the
remoteness for a moment when my peace
was disrupted by a panicked shout of “Get
off the path!”
I looked back, hearing another round of
“Get off the path!” from a few others before
I registered that my parents were flinging
themselves into the surrounding woods
adjacent to the trail. My mind processed
what my body did not immediately register:
There was a bear, running full speed,
coming directly at me. If I didn’t move, it
would plow right through me.
I followed my parents’ lead and jumped
to the side and hurdled into the woods and
over a fallen tree milliseconds before I was
trampled by the racing bear. The creature
was so close that if I had reached out my
hand, I would have been able to stroke its
thick brown fur. The safety course warned
us not to make sudden movements because
they startle the animals. But in this case,
moving rapidly out of the way was the only
way to prevent any serious bodily harm.
I took in the people standing within
the trees around me, still not believing
what just transpired. We all seemed to be
wondering the same thing: What was the
bear running from?
We got our answer seconds later as
another bear came charging in. It slowed
down, coming to a stop directly in front
of me, less than 20 feet away. Cantering in
close behind it were two cubs, following
their mother as she ran off the previous
young male bear who came too close to her
offspring.
We remained silent, not believing that this
had happened less than five minutes into our
Katmai adventure. The mother proceeded to
take in her surroundings, her glance settling
on the people crowded into the trees.
The rangers advised us to give the bears
a wide berth of 50 feet and to move aside if
we saw them walking on the trail, granting
them the path for their own foot travel. I
had quickly broken this first rule — I was
definitely less than 50 feet away. But, abiding
by the rangers’ instructions, we all moved
deeper into the woods, slowly giving her the
path while keeping an eye on her movements.
She remained there for several moments,
staring back at us. For the moment, I simply
absorbed the bear family’s beauty and the
wildness of the moment.
After no more than 30 seconds, she and
her children continued on their way, now
rid of the foolish male that had threatened
her family.
I don’t think Madame Orlowsky ever
expected me to experience a real-life
manifestation of her metaphor. Upon
reflecting on my encounter, I now see that
I didn’t run away, freeze or stand up to the
bear like she had outlined in her narrative.
Instead, I took a literal step back, observed
the bear and respected her dominance
within the woods.
Artist on the guillotine
Confronting the bear in the woods
ABBY SNYDER
Statement Correspondent
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
6 — Wednesday, November 17, 2021
S T A T E M E N T
MARY ROLFES
Statement Correspondent
SARAH STOLAR
Statement Correspondent
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
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