![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Using freshly minted powers, the UK watchdog earlier this month banned an advert for PeoplePerHour, an online platform that connects freelancers with businesses. At least, that’s what a recent ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) suggests. Fast-forward a mere half dozen years and this particular formulation looks to have evolved into just another linguistic tool of oppression, doing the very opposite of what it was intended for: denigrating rather than celebrating, patronising rather than promoting. Still, language is nothing if not fluid, and neologisms like “girl boss” are no exception. As a rallying cry for a generation of young women who might not otherwise have thought to start their own businesses, #girlboss bore countless hopes, dreams and gleefully hard-nosed aspirations out into the ether. That name was borrowed from a 1975 Betty Davis album, but with “girl boss” she signalled a defiantly female rebellion against the likes of ’80s power dressing trends (what were shoulder pads if not an attempt to give a woman a more masculine silhouette?). Adding a hashtag prefix, she sent it rocketing into public consciousness as the title of her autobiography, a bestseller that later became a TV series, and that described her transformation of an eBay vintage store into the multi-million-dollar fashion brand that is Nasty Gal. Back in 2014, American entrepreneur Sophia Amoruso popularised the word “girl boss”. ![]()
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