girlboss

plural girlbosses · alternative girl boss · alternative girl-boss

1. neologismA female entrepreneur who succeeds in the male-dominated business world.

   The girlboss didn't change the system; she thrived within it. Now that system is cracking, and so is this icon of millennial hustle.

   2021, Leigh Stein, quoted in Arwa Mahdawi, Strong Female Lead: Lessons from Women in Power, unnumbered page

   2 more examples

   The book also includes sidebars featuring guest “girlbosses” (bloggers, Internet entrepreneurs) who share equally clichéd suggestions for business success.

   2014, review of #Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso, Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2014, page 41

   Indeed, this series is supposedly set in the present day, but these girlbosses speak as if the year is still 2014, and they are corporate robots pre-programmed to name-drop luxury brands in each sentence (“Let’s get those Goyard travel cases and start stuffing!”). […] Born in the mid-2010s, the concept of the girlboss promised a utopia where women could bulldoze into workplaces, pull up a seat at male-dominated tables and become a celebrated CEO on the Forbes 30 Under 30 List by the ripe age of 23 (and do it all, of course, wearing a fuchsia blazer and a balayage hairdo).

   2025 November 6, Ellie Muir, “In All's Fair, the girlboss archetype has never been more embarrassing”, in The Independent, archived from the original on 16 Feb 2026

2. broadlyneologismAny strong-willed, independent, enterprising woman.

   But viewers stanned girlbosses in every genre, from Parks and Recreation's idealistic bureaucrat Leslie Knope to Game of Thrones' colonizer Khaleesi, Daenerys Targaryen.

   2021, Judy Berman, "What comes after the pop-culture girlboss", Time, 5 July 2021 - 12 July 2021, page 98

present singular third person girlbosses · participle present girlbossing · participle past girlbossed · past girlbossed · alternative girl boss · alternative girl-boss

1. intransitiveTo behave or act as a girlboss.

   Did you girlboss too close to the sun? / Did they catch you having far too much fun?

   2025, “CANCELLED!”, in The Life of a Showgirl, performed by Taylor Swift

   2 more examples

   The reality of girlbossing, however, was always a little bit messier. […] Girlbossing provided a tenuous bridge in the mid-2010s: on one end, the reality of social upheaval and stagnant wage growth that met young people in the job market after the Great Recession; on the other, the long-gone world of predictable corporate success that these women had been promised by the professional progress of their mothers.

   2020 June 25, Amanda Mull, “The Girlboss Has Left the Building”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 26 Mar 2021

   Did Taylor Swift "girl boss" too close to the sun? Some fans are now debating the ethics of making and having that much money.

   2023 January 23, Michelle Elias, “Taylor Swift is on the world tour that’s tipped to make her a billionaire. Fans are torn”, in SBS, archived from the original on 25 Apr 2023