Founded | 2014 |
---|---|
Type | Educational charity |
Purpose | Awareness and elimination of derogatory vocabulary among youth toward women |
Location |
|
Origins | Sheryl Sandberg |
Area served | United States |
Product | Public service announcements and campaigns |
Method | Online, radio, television, and print campaigns, Field organizing, Entertainment community |
Website | banbossy |
Ban Bossy is a self-censorship campaign launched in 2014 by LeanIn.org. The campaign criticizes the use of the word "bossy" to describe assertive girls and women, proposing that the word is stigmatizing and may discourage girls and women from seeking positions of leadership. [1]
Sponsored primarily by the then chief operations officer of Meta Platforms and World Economic Forum member Sheryl Sandberg, and operated by Ms. Sandberg's NGO LeanIn.org and the Girl Scouts, the campaign features prominent women and various sponsors urging people to pledge not to use the word.
Featured advocates who appear in Ban Bossy promotional material in addition to Sandberg include Jennifer Garner, Jane Lynch, Diane von Fürstenberg, Condoleezza Rice, Jimmie Johnson, Sinéad O'Connor, Arne Duncan, Anna Maria Chávez, [2] Victoria Beckham, and Beyoncé, who stated "leadership is more important to boys than girls." [3] [4] [5] [6]
The campaign website also features training material designed for schools, teachers, parents and children to further the project.
The campaign has received criticism since its launch. Joan Rivers commented that she found the online movement to be "so stupid" and added, "I find it outrageous and I find it petty ... and I find we're so damn uptight in this country that this whole country is being divided." [7]
In The New Yorker , Margaret Talbot criticized the campaign itself as bossy and instead suggested reclaiming the word, much as has been done for "nerd" and "queer". [8]
Victoria Caroline Beckham is an English fashion designer, singer, and television personality. She rose to prominence in the 1990s as a member of the pop group the Spice Girls, in which she was nicknamed Posh Spice. With over 100 million records sold worldwide, the group became the best-selling female group of all time. After the Spice Girls disbanded in 2001, Beckham signed with Virgin Records, to release her self-titled debut solo album, which produced two UK Top 10 singles. Beckham has also become an internationally recognised style icon and fashion designer.
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Sheryl Lee is a German-born American film, stage, and television actress. After studying acting in college, Lee relocated to Seattle, Washington to work in theater, where she was cast by David Lynch as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 television series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. After completing Twin Peaks, she returned to theater, appearing in the title role of Salome on Broadway opposite Al Pacino.
Sherilyn Fenn is an American actress. She played Audrey Horne on the television series Twin Peaks for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award.
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Sheryl Kara Sandberg is an American technology executive, philanthropist, and writer. Sandberg served as chief operating officer (COO) of Meta Platforms, a position from which she stepped down in August 2022. She is also the founder of LeanIn.Org. In 2008, she was made COO at Facebook, becoming the company's second-highest-ranking official. In June 2012, she was elected to Facebook's board of directors, becoming the first woman to serve on its board. As head of the company's advertising business, Sandberg was credited for making the company profitable. Prior to joining Facebook as its COO, Sandberg was vice president of global online sales and operations at Google and was involved in its philanthropic arm Google.org. Before that, Sandberg served as research assistant to Lawrence Summers at the World Bank, and subsequently as his chief of staff when he was Bill Clinton's United States Secretary of the Treasury.
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Helen Vivian "Nell" Scovell is an American television and magazine writer, and producer. She is the creator of the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which aired on ABC and The WB from 1996 until 2003 and co-author of the book Lean In.
Since 2004, Forbes, an American business magazine, has published an annual list of its ranking of the 100 most powerful women in the world. Edited by prominent Forbes journalists, including Moira Forbes, the list is compiled using various criteria such as visibility and economic impact. In 2023, the gauge was "money, media, impact and spheres of influence". The top 10 per year are listed below.
Jennifer Anne Garner is an American actress. She studied theater at Denison University and began acting as an understudy for the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City. She had a starring role on the Fox teen drama series Time of Your Life (1999–2000), and supporting roles in the war drama film Pearl Harbor (2001) and the comedy-drama film Catch Me If You Can (2002).
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Jessica Bennett is an American journalist and author who writes on gender issues, politics and culture. She was the first gender editor of The New York Times and a former staff writer at Newsweek and columnist at Time.
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LeanIn.Org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by then present Chief Operating Officer of Meta Platforms Sheryl Sandberg in 2013 dedicated "to offering women the ongoing inspiration and support to help them achieve their goals." The organization desires to support women in three main ways: community, education, and circles, or small, coordinated peer groups that meet to share their experiences and learn together. Launched after the release of Sandberg's bestselling book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, the organization views itself as the next step in an effort to change "the conversation from what we can’t do to what we can do." Since its launch, over 380,000 women and men have joined the Lean In community, creating 34,000 Lean In Circles in over 157 countries to date.