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March 10, 2014 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
09:09
Ban Bossy by being bossy
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Time Text
This is Van Bossy.
Take one.
Pushy, stubborn, stubborn, pushy.
Pushy, stubborn, stubborn, bossy bossy.
Bossy, bossy.
When I was growing up, I was called bossy.
Well, shit.
I mean, I think that bossy is an adjective that describes your actions, the things you do to other people.
So if people are calling you bossy, they are letting you know that the way you are acting isn't appropriate.
It isn't good for the health of other people.
They don't appreciate it.
Can you empathise with another person?
We'll see.
I think the word bossy is just a swasher.
Yes, it is.
Because being bossy is not a good thing.
Being bossy makes you unpopular.
Being bossy means that you do not think of the people you are bossing around as equals.
I guess that you guys were unpopular as kids, and this is why you don't understand how you were unpopular.
Why doesn't everyone just do as you say?
Wouldn't life be a lot easier for everyone else if they just did as you say?
Well, it's a funny old world, isn't it?
It's almost like there are people out there who have their own thoughts and opinions.
And I'm going to guess from just the way you've approached this first few opening seconds that their opinions are more informed than yours.
You seem to lack all kind of self-awareness, and we're not even a minute in.
Being labelled something matters.
Yes, it does.
That's why people do it.
They label you, in this case, as bossy, because it is a negative social trait that you are displaying.
And the reason they are labeling you bossy is because they want you to stop it.
They want you to change your personality to fit the group, like everyone has to do.
This is what all of these labels are for.
All labels perform a social function.
They are to mitigate the worst aspects of an individual's personality to create more harmony within the group.
So everyone consider themselves more or less equal.
The point of them is to give you some kind of self-awareness of how you are.
If lots of people call you bossy, then you are definitely fucking bossy.
And you should do something about it because lots of people don't like it.
By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.
And that's because they worry about being called bossy.
Is it?
Is it solely down to that?
Where is your proof?
You asserting it means nothing.
I think it's because women are just less inclined.
They have less desire to do that.
Being a leader is a competitive position.
It seems that women generally don't enjoy competition.
There are women that do.
Most women tend not to.
I am going to take that as a sign that women are generally not particularly competitive.
It seems, in fact, that women prefer to be cooperative, which is not a leadership trait.
Well, it is to a certain degree, but we'll get to that.
We need to tell them it's okay to be ambitious.
We need to help them lean in.
What does that even mean?
Lean in, women.
Feel free to lean in all you want.
Are we done?
Words matter.
You're goddamn right they do.
So why are you using them so frivolously?
Let's just ban the word bossy.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Are we going to burn some books next?
NewSpeak is the fictional language in the novel 1984 by George Orwell.
It is a controlled language created by the totalitarian state as a tool to limit freedom of thought and concepts that pose a threat to the regime, such as freedom, self-expression, individuality, peace, etc.
Any form of thought alternative to the party's construct is classified as a thought crime.
Are you suggesting if I call someone bossy, I have committed a thought crime?
You unfucking believable.
We are not banning words.
And encourage girls to lead.
To be strong and be ambitious.
Listen to your own voice.
There are no limits.
There to be you.
You can change the world.
To lead and to boss are two completely different things.
Bossy, giving to ordering people about.
Overly authoritative.
Domineering.
Notice how this doesn't require any kind of actual authority.
You are just doing it.
And people have the choice of complying or not.
Leadership, the position or function of a leader, a person who guides or directs a group.
2. The ability to lead.
This is legitimate because they are displaying ability.
They are not bossing people.
They are not telling people what to do and hoping to assume a de facto mantle of leadership.
A manager says, do as I say, and a leader says, follow me.
You are not saying follow me.
You're in fact trying to be bossy and boss people about into getting the word bossy banned.
You have no authority by which to ban a word.
Especially when it is directly pertinent to the actions you are currently taking.
Fuck you!
Let's ban bossy.
Be brave.
Be you.
Ban bossy.
Join us to ban bossy.
According to George Orwell, the purpose of New Speak was to not only to provide a medium of expression for the worldview and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsock, replace the name of the cause at your convenience, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.
Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and very often very subtle expression to every meaning that a party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods.
This is a really bad idea.
We should not go down this road.
This road is the direct restriction of freedom of thought.
If a girl is being bossy, then she is being bossy.
It's not a good thing.
It shouldn't be covered up.
If women are incapable of being leaders and are incapable of not being bossy at the same time, then they are not good leaders.
Now, I don't think that's the case.
I think the case is that these women are not good leaders.
These women are bossy.
Margaret Thatcher, in my opinion, was a superb example of a female leader.
If there's one thing that Margaret Thatcher commanded, it was respect.
She might be hated by God knows how many people, but they didn't think of her as weak.
They didn't think of her as incapable.
They thought of her as a leader because she did.
She acted and people followed.
They said, holy shit, we have to fight her at her own game politically and they failed.
That is leadership.
That is not being bossy.
What these women are proposing is to boss their way into positions of power by being the de facto authority by control.
They are not suggesting that they achieve by merit.
This is very anti-merit.
Because just because a woman is especially bossy doesn't make her right.
I'm not bossy.
I'm the boss.
Then by definition, that makes you bossy.
Because the boss is not the leader.
They are not synonymous.
Look at the synonyms.
High-handed, officious, dictatorial, overbearing, abrasive.
You be the fucking boss if you want, but I'm not going to follow you.
And you have absolutely no power of compulsion over me.
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