Please don’t ‘girlboss’ Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris made history on November 7 as the first Black and Asian-American woman to become Vice President-elect of the United States. Donning a crisp white Caroline Herrera pantsuit for her victory speech that evening at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, Harris took the time to thank voters, campaign staff and volunteers. She expressed gratitude towards the generations of women who “fought and sacrificed so much for equality, liberty, and justice for all” and “worked to secure and protect the right to vote,” as well as the women of today who “cast their ballots and continued the fight for their fundamental right to vote and be heard.”
It’s easy to see why so many people online have already begun to deify Harris as a new feminist icon. She’s a woman of color in a space where women of color–especially black women, as she noted in her speech–have traditionally been silenced, overlooked and shut out. Her victory comes on the heels of four years of an administration that has been regressive in more ways than one, from President Donald Trump’s failure to explicitly condemn white supremacists to consistent Republican attacks on reproductive rights. Though this is a historical win that deserves to be celebrated, we must be careful not to fall back into the pre-Trump trap of the neoliberal girlboss.
Girlboss was coined by Sophia Amoruso, founder of Girlboss Media and online fast-fashion retailer Nasty Gal, in her 2014 memoir “#Girlboss.” Dubbed “‘Lean In’ for misfits” by the Washington Post, Amoruso’s book posited that women’s achievements in the corporate world were acts of feminism. Since the term’s conception, many popular women have been hailed girlbosses, from Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow to reality show star Kylie Jenner. The girlboss label has also been used to describe women in politics, such as former Secretary of State and 2016 Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton or the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The girlboss concept has also been thoroughly criticized for being “infantilizing” and a tenet of so-called “white feminism,” a form of feminism that fails to address how the intersectional struggles of systemic racism and classism can play a role in misogyny. Other critiques of the girlboss stem from its central idea that corporate achievement can replace activism. In sum, the idea implies that individual gains can be collective and that one woman being placed in a position of power is a step forward for all. This brand of individual-oriented feminism is often accompanied by the sanitization of women considered girlbosses, releasing them from any culpability they have in perpetuating patriarchal practices that harm marginalized communities — women included — in favor of supporting women no matter what. In the political realm, this can be particularly concerning, such as with Clinton and Ginsburg, two women who have been criticized for their harmful ideas and practices just as often as they’ve been rendered in aesthetic IG posts, laptops stickers and tote bags.
While Vice President-elect Harris is clearly not a white feminist, certain mainstream reactions to the Biden-Harris victory have spawned some concern, particularly from sex workers and trans rights advocates, that her past actions will be erased via neoliberal girlboss revisionism. Harris opposed Proposition K in 2008, which aimed to decriminalize sex work and direct money used on prosecuting sex workers towards public health measures that prevent STIs, and supported SESTA/FOSTA, a 2018 bill that aimed to stop the sex trafficking of children but instead resulted in the shutdown of websites that sex workers used to screen clients for their safety. In addition, Harris repeatedly appealed court decisions in favor of giving Michelle Norsworthy, a trans woman who was placed in a men’s facility, gender reassignment surgery to treat gender dysphoria. Since then, Harris has expressed support for public health measures that help trans people but hasn’t said anything explicit regarding trans inmates.
As stated previously, achieving such a high position in politics as a woman, especially a woman of color, isn’t something to be taken lightly. Harris broke a significant barrier, and as she said, while she is the first woman in the office, she certainly won’t be the last. But we cannot regress into the idea that representation in politics, the girlboss concept included, is the be-all and end-all of activism. And, perhaps most importantly, we must remember that we can appreciate achievements without deifying the achiever. In this 2020 election, Americans proved that we still have enough fight left in us to reject failed civil servants like President Trump; we cannot let the momentum die and fall back into complacency when there’s still so much work left to do. If we want to create a better world for marginalized peoples, all figures must be subject to critique, including women.
