# When did "bossy" and "pushy" become sexist terms? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 20, 2014, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784 "2014-05-20T00:56:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/41 "2014-05-22T20:38:31Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > I don’t think it’s the word itself that is sexist, but more the way certain traits are lauded in men and criticized in women. A man with a forceful personality is more likely to be described as driven, confident, assertive, and a leader. A woman is more likely to be described as bossy, pushy, or a bitch. Nice cherry picking of words. The vast majority of men I’ve known that had “forceful personallities” I’ve called dicks and assholes. I skipped over a promotion because it meant my new manager would be a man with a “forceful personality” and the extra money wasn’t worth putting up with that dickhead. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/42 "2014-05-22T20:50:31Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > Nice cherry picking of words. The vast majority of men I’ve known that had “forceful personallities” I’ve called dicks and assholes. I skipped over a promotion because it meant my new manager would be a man with a “forceful personality” and the extra money wasn’t worth putting up with that dickhead. So you feel men and women are treated equally and fairly by all? Or is this only an anecdote about how you treat people, with little applicability to the world as a whole? ---
**Author:** ![James\_Toothpaste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e56c9b/32.png) [@James\_Toothpaste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/James_Toothpaste)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/43 "2014-05-22T20:50:55Z")
I don’t use them in a sexist way. I call both men and women bossy or pushy. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/44 "2014-05-23T01:35:36Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > This is perfect. For everyone arguing we are past gender bias in the workplace, you have demonstrated the fallacy of that much better than we were able to argue. I would say it’s a combination of bias and that women and men simply act differently. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/45 "2014-05-23T04:54:48Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > So you feel men and women are treated equally and fairly by all? Or is this only an anecdote about how you treat people, with little applicability to the world as a whole? It’s applicable because it explains exactly why this sort of crap is so poorly received. By focusing on the word “bossy,” this whole movement is easy to dismiss. If I personally am not being a misogynist in the way I use that word, then I’m not going to stop using it. If you fail on the title, the rest of your argument never gets read. This movement is focusing on the wrong problem to the point of making things worse. You can’t make an effort to ban a word as your first movement. You first need to convince people that there is a problem with the word, and this campaign does not do that. Even the Google cite given here isn’t enough for me to be convinced here, since it’s about what noun is modified, when the noun most often modified by bossy is the person’s name. And that is more research than this campaign has backing it. This isn’t “uppity” here. It’s not a word that is used as a code word. It is a word that people are using without paying attention to any possible gender problems. The solution is not to ban the word, but to use it for what we think it means. This means calling men on their bossy behavior, just as we do women. The underlying problem in these sorts of things is almost always that we expect women to be better behaved than men. Why should the solution be to let both sexes be equally poorly behaved? Why can’t the solution be what most of us already want to do: call out bad behavior in all genders equally? You really think you aren’t going to engender defensiveness when you make a campaign to ban a word? You think that a word that is used by children’s programming is going to be seen as such a dirty word that it must be removed from our vocabulary? You can’t just suddenly declare a word to be offensive and expect people to take you seriously. Ironically, this campaign is being rather bossy. ---
**Author:** ![BrianJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@BrianJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrianJ)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/46 "2014-05-23T10:06:49Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > A gendered word is one that applies primarily or exclusively to one gender. Words like he or she or aviatrix or steward are all gendered words, whereas they or it or pilot or caretaker aren’t gendered. Then you’ve got words like cunt or skank or whore or dickhead that the actual dictionary definition might not mention gender, but they’re really only used to talk about one gender or the other. Guys are sometimes called man whores, but never just plain whores, and they’re never cunts or skanks. (Note, this is in American usage where we don’t just call each other cunts for giggles.) Women are never dickheads. Whether the words are gendered in and of themselves, their usage is gendered. > > Of course, the thing with words that are gendered by usage is that they can over time become less- or un-gendered by shifts in usage. Doctor and nurse used to be very strongly gendered, and people often felt the need to specify that someone was a “lady doctor” or a “male nurse.” Now, if someone under the age of 90 says “lady doctor” people assume they’re talking about a gynecologist. Slut used to be super gendered–it was never, ever, ever used about guys. Ever. Then people started calling guys “man sluts” and then slowly just regular sluts. It’s still a gendered term because people are still somewhat more likely to judge the same behavior slutty in a woman than in a man, but how gendered it is has shifted a LOT in the last 25 years. > > Is bossy a gendered word? Well, it’s not gendered by its definition, no. But by its usage? Yeah, I think it probably is. I can’t recall the last time I heard someone call a man or boy that word. Not even when they’re being all pushy and demanding and micro-managing. People call them push or demanding or micromanagers or just plain assholes, but hardly ever bossy. All the offensive words above are related to sex or gender somehow, in an obvious context. Bossy is not. I’ve personally don’t recall bossy being used at all, to children or adults. I’m willing to take others word for it that women are called ‘bossy’ if they assert themselves at work. I"m not sure I’ve ever witnessed that either. I’ve had plenty of bosses both male and female in several different companies, both private and public, and people got along with them just fine. The only thing I object to in this whole discussion is the idea that only girls are called bossy, not boys. I"m not buying it, it sounds made up. I haven’t seen any cites to support the idea, just more assertions that it must be true. Not only that but the idea that calling an 8 year old girl bossy will discourage her from seeking management positions 20 years later after she has grown up, gone to college and lived life as an adult working at a job she excels in, is absurd. It’s like saying if you call a kid spoiled they will be poor the rest of their lives because they will learn that having stuff is a negative quality. It make no sense. I’ll toss in a personal anecdote here. I have 2 sisters. The older one was always ordering the other 3 about, acting like she had authority over the rest of us. The younger one, the baby of the family, was quiet, didn’t assert herself or try to control her sister or older brothers beyond the typical “Hey that’s my stuff!”. Guess which one is now the manager and which one is the stay at home mom? My older sister was telling us to do her share housework so she could go off and do something fun. she is, in fact, very lazy and did not excel at work.In fact she was fired (by her female boss if that’s relevant). She now stays home and takes care of her kids. My little sister is a manager at her work ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/47 "2014-05-23T11:52:14Z")
Nm ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/48 "2014-05-23T12:10:02Z")
You guys are ridiculous. Yeah yeah I’m sure you call your couch, pet mosquito and favorite lumberjack “bossy” all the time. Except in the world where the rest of us live, “bossy” is a pejorative used for young girls. Maybe if you’ve never been a young girl, you don’t have a ton of experience with it. But as a former young girl, among the many former young girls in this thread, “bossy” is indeed used quite often to describe girls in the 4-12 set. This brings up a few issues. One is that it is often used to describe behaviors that are not a bad thing, unless you subscribe to the “sugar and spice and everything nice” school of thought. Of course you are so enlightened that you only use this word for people who are a raging bitch train. But you are not the entirety of the universe. This word gets batted around by our peers, our teachers, our grandparents and others, and not infrequently it is indeed used to mean “Shut up and look sweet and let the men do the work.” And this sucks, because the behaviors that get get instilled out of us- diving in, speaking our minds, being forceful, standing our ground- are the things that help us later in life in everything from getting promoted to not getting raped. Seriously. You have no idea how many women get abused because they were taught that nice girls don’t put up much of a fuss. The other problem is that even if the girl is being obnoxious, “bossy” doesn’t provide her much instruction. It implies some kind of character flaw. We’d never say “Kyle, you are a spaz!” We’d say “Kyle, you are acting hyperactive. Please stop running and lower your voice.” It’s better to focus on specific behaviors, which can be fixed, rather than implying there is something wrong with their entire “bossy” personality. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/49 "2014-05-23T14:23:13Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > This movement is focusing on the wrong problem to the point of making things worse. You can’t make an effort to ban a word as your first movement. You first need to convince people that there is a problem with the word, and this campaign does not do that. Even the Google cite given here isn’t enough for me to be convinced here, since it’s about what noun is modified, when the noun most often modified by bossy is the person’s name. And that is more research than this campaign has backing it. Well, that’s rather fucking glib and lazy, isn’t it? Tell him what he can’t do, and what he’s failed to do, but don’t make any independent effort to actually determine whether what he’s really saying is true. You want more evidence? [Have some more evidence](http://linguisticpulse.com/2014/03/28/no-really-bossy-is-gendered/). Dig in. Do your own tests. It’s really very easy to see. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/50 "2014-05-23T17:18:10Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > Well, that’s rather fucking glib and lazy, isn’t it? The SDMB to a tee. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/51 "2014-05-23T20:18:13Z")
> [@Green\_Bean](#): > > (Bolding mine) > > Children. To say that this shows that it’s not gendered is absurd. We may use it for little boys, but not grown men. > > I have indeed described my son as “bossy” when he was 4 years old and telling everybody on the playground what to do. Now that he’s 12, I could still see telling him he was being “bossy,” but only if I was trying to give him a smack-down for really overstepping. And I would use it for little girls, not grown women. You’re right that my statement doesn’t prove the term isn’t gendered - since it’s difficult to prove a negative. But it is suggestive that the term isn’t gendered for me, and for the people I speak to. “It doesn’t conclusively prove your point, therefore it supports mine!” What kind of logic is that? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/52 "2014-05-23T21:08:41Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Except in the world where the rest of us live, “bossy” is a pejorative used for young girls. Maybe if you’ve never been a young girl, you don’t have a ton of experience with it. But as a former young girl, among the many former young girls in this thread, “bossy” is indeed used quite often to describe girls in the 4-12 set. Nonsense. There are plenty of other uses of “bossy”. A nagging wife or girlfriend. An overbearing female manager. A shrill pushy lady coworker. A mean nurse. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/53 "2014-05-23T21:36:21Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Nonsense. There are plenty of other uses of “bossy”. A nagging wife or girlfriend. An overbearing female manager. A shrill pushy lady coworker. A mean nurse. I’m sure it could be used in these contexts. But most of the time, it is directed at young girls, as anyone who has been a young girl can confirm. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/54 "2014-05-23T22:06:34Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Nonsense. There are plenty of other uses of “bossy”. A nagging wife or girlfriend. An overbearing female manager. A shrill pushy lady coworker. A mean nurse. Honestly, I can’t tell if I’m through the looking glass here or not. I’m assuming from your list that you agree that “bossy” is a term that is used primarily against girls and women? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/55 "2014-05-23T22:12:49Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > I’m sure it could be used in these contexts. But most of the time, it is directed at young girls, as anyone who has been a young girl can confirm. I’m honestly confused by the argument you’re having with him. Yes, it gets used against young girls. Yes, it gets used against grown women. The set it’s rarely use against is grown men. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/56 "2014-05-23T22:27:42Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Honestly, I can’t tell if I’m through the looking glass here or not. > > I’m assuming from your list that you agree that “bossy” is a term that is used primarily against girls and women? It looks kind of grotesque out of context, but I think they’re instances of where the word could be used against adult women in a non-sexist way. Of course it’s a hypothetical, so it can’t prove anything by definition. ---
**Author:** ![Ibanez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a4c791/32.png) [@Ibanez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibanez)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2014, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/57 "2014-05-24T03:21:09Z")
The ban bossy campaign is gigantic feminist [failure.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKyesBzDAs) ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2014, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/58 "2014-05-24T10:00:39Z")
> [@Ibanez](#): > > The ban bossy campaign is gigantic feminist [failure.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKyesBzDAs) That video is genius! When I see a move to ban a normal word, I feel morally compelled to use it as often as possible, but really, there is just not that much opportunity to do so, so it would be forced & contrived. “Bossy” is labelled a sexist term because some people don’t have enough real problems, feel they have to create some in order to feel useful, tell the rest of us what to do & be bossy. And that’s just retarded. ---
**Author:** ![BrianJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@BrianJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrianJ)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2014, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/59 "2014-05-24T10:30:59Z")
Another anecdote: A friend of mine has 2 daughters. The oldest one, lets call her Sarah, was frequently sent to her room as punishment when she ‘acted out’, ie crying throwing a temper tantrum. no word on whether she was called bossy, but plainly negative behaviour like that was punished by her mother. She is 15 now. She’s on the debate team in her school, which has sent her overseas several times for debate meets. She wants to be a lawyer. She is a sweet kind girl, at least when I’m around! I think she’ll be just fine. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2014, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784/60 "2014-05-24T11:08:02Z")
> [@BrianJ](#): > > Another anecdote: > > A friend of mine has 2 daughters. The oldest one, lets call her Sarah, was frequently sent to her room as punishment when she ‘acted out’, ie crying throwing a temper tantrum. no word on whether she was called bossy, but plainly negative behaviour like that was punished by her mother. > > She is 15 now. She’s on the debate team in her school, which has sent her overseas several times for debate meets. She wants to be a lawyer. She is a sweet kind girl, at least when I’m around! > > I think she’ll be just fine. What does this have to do with anything? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-bossy-and-pushy-become-sexist-terms/688784.md?page=4)