The rise and fall of the girlboss movement was swift—and thank goodness for that. From LinkedIn hustlers to overly positive Instagram posters and Trad wives, a movement that was supposed to empower the “sHero” and “goal digger” in all of us has become the butt of every joke on the internet but still has such a hold over our lives. We talked with Lola Kolade about how we can truly overcome the girlboss within all of us.
The rise and fall of the girlboss movement was swift—and thank goodness for that. From LinkedIn hustlers to overly positive Instagram posters and Trad wives, a movement that was supposed to empower the “sHero” and “goal digger” in all of us has become the butt of every joke on the internet but still has such a hold over our lives. We talked with Lola Kolade about how we can truly overcome the girlboss within all of us.
Read Lola’s substack The New New | Lola Kolade | Substack
Follow Lola’s tiktok lola | nyc writer (@lolaokola) | TikTok
Hilary:
Hi, I am Hilary.
Lark:
I'm Lark.
Jessica:
And I'm Jessica. And welcome to Hearsay where we deep dive into the cultural moments that live rent-free in our heads and probably yours too. And today we will not gaslight, we will not gatekeep, and we will not girlboss
Lark:
Jessica:
In case you forgot. Um, but mainly talking about the idea of like, I am woman. Hear me roar. I must do everything and I can do everything. And because I'm a woman, I'm the most powerful being and because I'm the most powerful being, I therefore must do everything, including running myself into the ground until I die. And including multitasking and handling, taking too much and you know what I mean? I think its…
Hilary:
Right the full burnout.
Jessica:
Yeah. The full burnout. And it's like burnout. shmurn-out.
Lark:
But it's cute.
Jessica:
Yeah. And I’m, I wear it well
Hilary:
Burnout in a nice like, you know, cursive script
Jessica:
Oh, you see me sweat, it's just glitter. I'm glimmering
Lark:
I don’t sweat. I glimmer. Yeah, shimmer.
Hilary
I feel like the origin of girl bossing, I don't actually know this for a fact, but as someone who experienced it, who I guess had passed girl bossing by, by the time it came into, I don't know how to not say this and just not feel old, but it like, you know, I, I got to watch millennials like lose their minds basically.
Lark:
And boy did we.
Hilary:
I was in a safe spot of like having kids and being too tired for that shit. You know, so like, I couldn't, I couldn't join, but I imagined it came from and certainly observed it, that it came from this like reaction to patriarchy. Mm-Hmm.
Lark:
Yes.
Hilary:
Spoiler alert. That doesn't work.
Lark:
You can't. Yes.
Jessica:
The origins of it are well-meaning seemingly
Lark:
Sophia Amoruso. I think is the first person to name it. The nasty gal, creator, founder. She wrote a book, #GirlBoss about her start. #GirlBoss by Sophia Amoruso was on 20% off clearance and Target when I moved to Washington DC in 2017. So I don't know, whenever that is, it came out 'cause I did buy it and it is still on my bookshelf.
Hilary:
Oh boy.
Lark:
We will get to that. Um but yeah, like I feel like she was the first person to name this kind of like, yeah, fuck the patriarchy. I'm doing it my way. And I'm scrappy and I can hustle and look cute and I'm a woman and I can do it.
Jessica:
So we're gonna get into like, yes. It had I guess some seemingly quote unquote humble beginnings, but like how it can very easily be a mask for something else. How it can be unproductive, how it can be destructive. And what are better ways to still channel like our power ss women. And also like combat the patriarchy while still taking care of ourselves. That's what we're getting into today. Um, so Hilary Lark, like please tell me about your experiences with Girl bossing. I know we kind of already gotten a little bit.
Lark:
I am so girl boss coded. I say I'm a reformed girl boss. I, like I said, I have the books still. I used to have all the quotes painted on canvas in my college apartments because I think it was just marketed to us at that time. Like probably, what is this, like 2013, 2014 ish of yeah, we're changing the script. Right? We're flipping the script. We can do it. You don't have to pick between being a boss bitch and a business lady or a mom or neither. Like you can do whatever you want. Mm-Hmm.
Jessica:
Be your boss.
Lark:
Yeah. And it's like, you actually aren't, and it was just so much in our society as a millennial. And I feel like it took so long to kind of unlearn some of that. And it's still hard. We know deep down you can't do that. You can't girl boss yourself out of patriarchy. But it's a great ideal to believe in. You know, it's, it feels cool and empowering to think that you could do that, but we can't. And I, I do feel hope that it's getting made fun of more. It's memed. it's like not cool. I will say though, I was just searching Girl Boss on TikTok and there are so many people earnestly using that hashtag and have it in their handle. And I'm like, oh, I really thought we weren't doing this anymore. But we are.
Jessica:
I think we're in like a different wave of it. And also because of the internet and continuing to grow. 'cause obviously the internet was part of the blow up of girl bossing. And also like, like because of Pan the pandemic leading people to work from home, a lot of people are looking up side hustles. And also like, um, AI, like, here's how I can make money on TikTok. Like, and be make like tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, like in this period of time by having AI generated things or like stealing people's content. I think it's like a different era of like, my money works for me. Like I don't work for my money. I think the tone has shifted a little bit. And I think that's where like, while we have been free from the shackles of girl bossing, like I think it kind of has a different name in a way.
Hilary:
Exactly.
Jessica:
For this new wave. But people are still tagging it in addition to it.
Lark
Yeah every creator.
Hilary:
Yeah. I feel like it's morphed into that the, the entire like influencer sphere has started to like feed itself and in sort of an MLM-y way. Like a big one. That's like anyone can be an influencer. Influencers will now teach you how to be other influencers. There's so many like coaches now. Mm-Hmm.
Lark:
Yeah the life coach. Woof.
Hilary:
Yeah. And it, it's just, and it's all about like a reaction to a system. Patriarchy, capitalism, pick yours that isn't gonna work for you. And so you're trying to like step outside of it. Which is an understandable impulse, but you're just stepping into the same thing again just like disguised as independent, disguised as like something you can control. And it, it's like so depressing to me, but like, if you can come at it with fresh eyes, you like start to like realize there's nothing there. And I have been fed so many reels that tell me that I could make money by, you know, reselling stuff that someone buys on target and sell, putting it on Amazon or whatever the like
Jessica:
Oh yeah. Drop shipping was the other thing
Lark:
Yeah. Yeah. Or just having your Amazon affiliate link any place. Anyone really can have a link in any buy on anything and be your own Girl boss.
Hilary:
I find it so depressing. All of it. But I think, I think for me, I'm lucky that becoming a cultural moment happened after I was passed the point where like I would hustle in that way. And that's 'cause I had kids by that point. Um, and you just can't hustle the same way though we'll talk about that in a second. 'cause unless you make, unless you make the kids part of the hustle
Jessica:
Oh my god
Lark:
Yeah god. And we’ll get to that.
Hilary:
And I'm using hustle both, both ways here. The hustle is in, you're like ripping someone off and then the hustle of like, you're trying real hard and it's a spectrum. They're both on the same line. Anyway, I think for me, we didn't know about hustling, but we were certainly all ambitious. But it's like you couldn't, it was like a thing you had to like keep low your ambition. Like we were in, but now
Jessica.
Subtle hustle
Lark:
Yeah we’re a bunch of nerds. Yeah
Hilary:
Right. But now everyone I know, at least I tell everyone this too and they nod. So I'm gonna assume they agree with me and my friends that like, I just tell people all the time, oh, I'm post ambition
Lark:
Soft life.
Hilary:
Soft life. Right, right. But I think that uh, for me it's that I have to tell everybody though I'm post ambition. I can't just be it because the culture shifted that like not hustling and not trying has to be like an active state you're in otherwise like what are you doing?
Lark:
Right. And you're like derided for wanting to not be stressed out. Which is wild
Hilary:
For work life balanced. Yeah.
Lark:
Yeah. God forbid.
Jessica
I had a professor in college who was like, at this age, you should be busy every single day.
Lark:
Oh my God.
Jessica:
Like why? You're supposed to be doing stuff. Why aren't you doing stuff? And I was like
Hilary:
That pressure.
Jessica:
And I was like bestie, I have an anxiety disorder.
Lark:
I feel like I've seen
Jessica:
I actually don't agree
Lark:
No, I don't agree. I do think there's always like any movement, there's gonna be holdouts. I do think the like soft life, rat girl, feral girl summer like era stuff is great and perfect and like you don't have to do, when it's done right. I think it's getting co-opted by..
Hilary
Yes, it’s still a thing to attain.
Lark:
It is. But I think there's this, especially I think like rat girl feral girl summer stuff is like, you don't have to actually do anything
Hilary:
Yeah.
Jessica:
Dun dun dun
Lark:
Tough.
Hilary
Every episode I feel like is trad wife adjacent. But this is probably the most trad wife.
Lark:
We're naming 'em
Hilary:
Wifey. Trad wifey
Lark:
Hashtag trad wife. So I think the trad wife, , I don't wanna call it a movement.
Jessica:
Traditional wife
Lark:
Yeah.
Jessica:
Stands for traditional wife
Lark:
And it's this concept I guess that is made popular on Instagram and TikTok showing what it's like to be a quote unquote traditional wife of you, um, dressed like free people mixed with Little House on the Prairie
Jessica:
You make everything.
Lark:
Yeah. You make everything. Your kids don't go to school. Um, you just kind of wander around in fields and like look aesthetically pleasing. Um, and that is not real or good. And I think the most famous ones by far are Ballerina Farm and Nara Smith. Even though they don't claim themselves as trad wives, they're definitely who people go to for that ideal. And like when we talk about or think about trad wives, I feel like a lot of us picture those two people. And, uh, there's a lot of heavy undertones and, and true background in heavy patriarchal religions. Um, it's a lot of Mormon culture and a lot of evangelical culture behind a lot of these top creators. And what they leave out, the same thing all the girl boss stuff leaves out is all the things it takes to get that. And like you again, like you can't just do that. You have people watching your kids and taking care of your house and running your businesses.
Jessica:
I think also a piece of what you're talking about with these trad wives is they're not talking about the backside of it and they're not talking about the fact that they get paid to tell us this stuff.
Lark:
That's my whole thing! You are working!
Jessica:
You are working.
Lark:
You creating content that's monetized you selling stuff with your kids in the video. You. Nara Smith was in a Mark Jacobs ad. You are working. You filming content, editing it, posting it, thinking about it. That is work. You are working and everything you do, even if you weren't posting that is work and you're degrading yourself by saying you're not working. Ballerina Farm has eight children. She's 35 and has eight children in, uh, that Times article that came out. She talks about, she goes, there's weeks she can't get out of bed. She's so exhausted. But she is the supposed ideal of like trad wife soft life and she's physically exhausted to the point that she and her kids know it. Like she's talks about her kids know that's like a quiet week.
Hilary:
There's so much there because of right. Trad wife, soft life. Like putting yourself in this place where like the simplest things right? Plucking an egg. But it's the same. It's the continuum. Right. Like she is still hustling. She can't rest. Having kids is her job because it makes her money and because it upholds the patriarchy. It's all so depressing.
Lark:
It's so depressing and it's so hard to, again, it's women like having to stick up for this. Right. Or say, this is actually what I
Hilary:
This is my choice.
Lark:
I promise this is what I wanna do. Right. Right. This is my choice. I choose to be a trad wife. I choose to be a girl boss. And it's like, actually babes society chose it for you.It's, it's like
Hilary:
It left you no choice.
Lark:
You need to be a woman. Right. And you get to pick which trap you get to fall into. You know, is it girl boss? Is it trad wife? Is it Rat Girl Summer? Is it post ambition era? You know, what's your pocket? We all have to exist and live in this.
Jessica:
And there's also like racial intersections and ramifications as well. Like Nara Smith is black. Um, and thinking about the idea of like a Shonda Rhimes. Of like a black, of an Oprah
Hilary:
Oprah
Jessica.
Things like that where it's like in addition to, you're like, yeah, I'm girl bossing, I'm a woman. But then it's also like, I'm a Black woman, so there's a representation. Right. But it like, not only does it come with like more criticism, more all, all the negative things. Because you're a Black woman. But it's also like, there's the idea in like medical textbooks of like, Black women are inherently stronger and feel less pain. And therefore are less sensitive than white people. And so it's like, oh, you can handle so much more. And also the bar is so much higher. But you got, but it's like, it's so awful.
Lark:
It's so awful.
Jessica:
And I feel like I was, I remember being like a, I think it was like in high school when Girl Boss was like a big thing. And I was like, oh my God, I'm such a little girl boss
Lark:
Yeah. The eldest daughter to girl boss
Jessica:
I think we all kind of were at at some point. But like, I was definitely like, I need to have be in like, all the clubs that you can possibly be in. Like I was in school, I was at school like an hour early every day and was there until marching band practice ended at like six. And then I'd go work like a part-time job and then I'd go do all these things because I was like, I'm girl boss. And partially 'cause I was like, I need to get a scholarship for college. But also because I was like everyone needs to see…
Lark:
I have to be busy.
Jessica:
I have to be busy. Everyone has to see like how much work I'm doing. But I was exhausted. Like my mom had to like trick me into taking mental health days in high school,
Lark:
Which good on your Mom.
Jessica:
Yeah. Shout out. But at the same time I just felt like the bar was constantly being raised by myself, but then in general by society. Especially when I learned about girl bossing. And even coming to college, I was like, I have to do all these like, really hard things. And then when it hit me that like, coming to college is a hard thing. Like this in itself is very hard and I need to be honest about that. And everything, every step I've taken, like since then, I'm like, this is hard. And like, I can do hard things, but also I need to acknowledge that this is hard and find a way to balance and find a way to like check in and meet myself where I'm at.
Lark:
Well, and just everything women do is hard. Like, being a woman is hard. So like, you don't have to seek out
Jessica:
And we have like hormones and shit like with it
Lark:
And like, you don't have to seek out, we have to live in this world as a woman. So you don't have to seek out extra hard things.
Hilary
Well you don't have to. But also like, what if it weren't so hard? Yeah. What if there were supports? What if there were child care? What if there were, you know, healthcare?
Lark:
Anything at all?
Jessica:
And speaking of hopefully a changing tide in culture literally just around being a woman, and also the role the internet plays in all of this… I'm very excited that I'll be interviewing Lola Kolade. Lola is a content creator. She also has a Substack, which I've been subscribed to for a little while. And she created the idea of Rat Girl Summer. So I'm really excited to like, talk to her about her cultural critiques on girl bossing, her interpretations of girl bossing, and most importantly how she rat girls.
INTERVIEW
Jessica:
I am so excited to be here with Lola Kolade. Lola is a writer, digital content creator and the creator of Rat Girl Summer, which I'm so excited to get more into. So again, so thrilled to have you here. Thanks for coming, Lola.
Lola:
Thank you so much for having me. Very excited to chat.
Jessica:
Of course. And so for people who don't know, um, what does it mean to have a Rat Girl Summer? And also where did that come from? Like where did you come up with that idea?
Lola:
Yeah. Rat Girl Summer came just from me thinking about how I wanted to have enjoy my summer, what I wanted my summer to look like. I very much wanted to be free from, any pressure to have a kind of picture perfect social media summer. And I did not want to fall into like the trap of I have to get a summer body, I need a bikini body. I just wanted to live my life. And the word like scurrying kept coming up for me.
Jessica:
For sure. And I, the idea of saying scurrying in a non derogatory way, I feel like I always am. Like I'm scurrying from this thing to the other instead of like, I'm scurrying about my city. Like I love,
Lola:
Yeah
Jessica:
We, the rats don't run the city. We do
Lola:
Exactly.
Jessica:
Lola:
I don't think that the girl boss can truly be dead until, you know, we overthrow capitalism
Jessica:
Welp
Lola:
I think as long as we're living in a capitalist society, you know, the girls are gonna be bossing
Jessica:
Yeah. And I think we were talking or definitely feeling as though tying into your critique on capitalism, which is so real,
Lola:
very much.
Jessica:
It’s girl boss, it’s capitalism, but make it cute like capitalism, but make it, make it chic or whatever. And I agree with you with saying, as long as we're in a capitalistic society, like there will always be the urge the voices telling us to girl boss. But do you think that's the only reason people can't let it go? Or do you think there are some other factors?
Lola:
I think that's the main reason, definitely. I think for a lot of people it's hard to imagine an alternative of kind of crushing it in the system because this is the only system that we know. And especially, you know, in the United States we have this like Protestant work ethic, rise and grind hustle culture is very much embedded into the culture of this country. So I think it's kind of hard to escape and conceive of a different way to live your life. And of course then there's just the fact like, we need money to live like the girls need bread, you know, like good vibes and a nice personality are not gonna pay your bills
Jessica:
Unfortunately.
Lola:
And so I think. Unfortunately. If vibes could pay the bills, girl,
Jessica:
We'd be rich.
Lola:
I'd be a billionaire
Jessica:
The only way that I aspire to be a billionaire is in terms of vibes.
Lola:
Exactly.
Jessica:
For sure. I guess I wanna talk a little bit about like, were you caught up in the girl boss wave in the 2010s and like how did that
Lola:
Oh fully
Jessica:
How did that impact you? And like do you remember like if you were caught up, like did you immediately like buy into it? Were you skeptical and like, what was your journey with that and when did you realize, oh, this isn't really working for me?
Lola:
Yeah, absolutely. Um, fully caught up, completely drank the Kool-Aid fully lost in the sauce,
Jessica:
Being so stressed out.
Lola:
Having a bunch of degrees and working a bunch of jobs and being stressed is actually not a personality who knew
Jessica:
It's a cruel awakening when it comes to you, it comes, you're just like, well, what, what do I do now?
Lola:
Yeah, exactly. So I really had this like come to Jesus moment of like, who am I? What is important to me if I'm not racking up accolades, if I'm not trying to crush it, like what is, are actually the principles that I'm building my life upon? And it kind of kicked off like not to be a cliche than I am, like a healing journey
Jessica:
It's such a journey. And I don't think healing journey is cliche at all because it is, it is exhausting to be in the wheel of like, I must constantly achieve and must constantly be productive and rest isn't productive and relaxing isn't productive and doing things that I enjoy is not productive or anything that doesn't make me money isn't productive. And it is exhausting to live in that, but it's even more terrifying to explore what it is outside of what you know, even if it is exhausting.
Lola:
Yeah, very much so.
Jessica:
And so do you think there is a way that we as women can advance, can advocate and like empower each other to, I don't know, do anything
Lola:
Yeah.
Jessica:
Yeah. Success isn't a pie. Like, and there's only so many slices, like everyone can, there's unlimited slices. In a way you kinda have to move things around and you don't have to conform to whatever you think is success in order to be a fulfilled person of anything. It's the opposite.
Lola:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Jessica:
So I think another part of the girl boss epidemic is the idea of representation. And you kind of talked about it, right? Like all these women owned companies, um, some of them ending up having the same problems as male-owned companies or like large corporations, but it's like, it's okay 'cause it's a woman or it's okay because we finally got representation, um, where we haven't had it before. And there's also like the glass cliff, like the idea of like a woman coming in and like saving a company, but when it's on like the brink of, um, falling and then they're put in a pos an impossible position in a way. And so I think we're slowly starting to realize that like representation will not save us um, just because a woman is in a position of power, just 'cause a woman has reached a level that a woman has never reached in a societal context or in a power context, like, does not mean that we are free or does not mean that we have like defied all odds of like racism and sexism. So like how do we give less value to representation do you think? And like how do we focus more on like the things that really matter? I feel like that's a really big question.
Lola:
Jessica:
For sure the idea that representation is still significant, but it is not the entire thing. There's other parts to it.
Lola:
Exactly. It's a small piece of a much larger, uh, conversation.
Jessica:
A hundred percent. And it seems like, the real girl bosses, quote unquote are rebranding. They still exist, but it's not in the same cursive font that it used to be. Um, and so my question is,
Lola:
And I know the exact curse of font, you're talking about
Jessica:
But so like if we don't see that tacky millennial font, like how can we spot it? Like how do you spot it when you're like scrolling through your feed? Like when you see like other creators, like how do you spot it when it's a little bit less blatant or just coded in a different way and like, what should we, you know, be looking out for how do we not fall for Kool-Aid, but instead now it's like, I don't know what is, what is the like, like, I don't know. I feel like people
Lola:
Matcha.
Jessica:
Yeah but it's matcha, so we're like, oh, but it's good. It's like, no babe, it's the same match. I'm sure some people, I don't know, I'm not a matcha really, but I respect it.
Lola:
Neither am I, but I know that it, it kind of occupies
Jessica:
It does. It's like, it's like, no, I don't drink Kool-Aid. I drink uh, Match Lemonade and it's like bestie. Um, anyway, so how do, how do we spot girl bossing 2.0?
Lola:
Yeah, I think anything that romanticizes kind of like hyper-productivity, optimizing every minute of your day should kind, give you pause. It should kind of be like, hmm, this is a little bit of a red flag. I think that a kind of more modern iteration of the girl boss trend is like the, that girl trend on social media.
Jessica:
It girl
Lark:
I don't dunno if you're familiar of it. Yeah like that girl, she wakes up at 5:00 AM she does Pilates, she journals, she meditates like she is, she's running her own business. Or alternatively, she's a corporate girly, but basically
Jessica:
I literally almost wore a shirt today that I had to cut shoulder pads out of
Lola:
Jessica:
So I'm very familiar.
Lola:
Jessica:
But yeah, in general, and this isn't really like our brand, but in general like social media consumption, like just being wary, understanding that a lot of people are selling a lifestyle. And even like you said, 'cause you were just talking about how like that that girl, like she gets up, she goes to the gym, she meditates, she journals, and then she like, you know, goes to work and all of those, like beginning things are things that people arguably could be or should be doing for their wellness. But it is commodified in such a way that it's like, you know, if you don't have time for this, then like, you know, if it doesn't fit in to your, to your general flow, then you're failing or like you're not doing what you need to be doing and that's where the problem is.
Lola:
Yeah. And like, to be clear, those wellness practices are very important. I am, my morning routine is a huge part
Jessica:
For sure. That's a such a beautiful note to end on. Lola, thank you so much for all of your reflections and your jokes and everything. It was so perfect
Lola:
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This was awesome.
CREDITS:
Hearsay is a Wonder Media network production in partnership with the National Women's Law Center. It is hosted and produced by Jessica Baskerville, Lark Lewis and Hilary Woodward. Our producers are Taylor Williamson and Abby Delk. Jenny Kaplan is our executive producer and Maddy Foley is our editor show Art by Andrea Sumner.
BLOOPER:
Lark:
A person named Stormi Bree. And a person named Lucky Blue Smith had a baby and its name is Gravity something
Hilary:
Jessica:
Y'all. I wish y'all could see Hillary's face right now.
Lark:
Um…
Hilary:
I don't wanna make fun of children.
Lark:
Yeah. Gravity Bree.
Jessica:
They didn't pick their names.
Lark:
No. We're making fun of the parents. Not the kids.
Hilary:
I know I know, I'm so sorry, children.
Lark:
Yeah.