Ban Bossy. Words Matter.

[Seeking Serenity]

12. I disagree with this campaign

I don't see, have never seen, "bossy" as a sex-specific term. As I remember from my growing-up years and from my middle-school boy's experiences, boys can and are labeled as "bossy" just as much.

Bossiness, to me, comes from when people, male or female, insist on compliance with their ideas or their ways of doing things from someone else when they don't have any authority to demand such compliance. Think the character Sheldon Cooper from TBBT. He is definitely bossy because he demands the group do things his way, even though he has no authority to insist compliance, and then he sulks when he doesn't get his way. No one I know would call him a "leader;" he's just bossy.

Even those in authority, that is, the boss, can be bossy, male or female. It all comes down to HOW they exercise that authority and that knows no sex restrictions. My husband works under a female administrator. She is the boss; she can tell him what to do and he does it. But he doesn't describe her as bossy because she doesn't lord it over him. She is a leader and he respects her as such. But any boss, male or female, can be bossy if they exercise their authority in a kind of dictatorial, despotic way.

So, I respectfully disagree.