What is the difference between being bossy and being assertive? We ask girls to walk a very fine line.
Comment: Kathleen, definetly remind me very much of my ex wife, a ballbuster. Articles such as this, reinforces why I won't and basically refused to get remarried period. Another thing I worry and feared are for my nephews. That will most likely to encouter these future little dictators. ......posted by the Dark Knight
Comment: Hmmm. Kathleen, I was with you for a little bit, but on further thought I really must disagree. In my opinion (and raising boy/girl twins) bossiness IS a girl thing, just like aggressiveness is a boy thing. They are both undesirable traits, symptomatic of children who don't know other methods to get what they want, such as cooperation or persuasion. I have to agree with some other posters that encouraging this kind of behavior is a disservice: to boys AND girls.
Comment: why would you wager her daughter be divorced? i am 28, have been married for three years and have a two year old daughter. I also have been called the other 'b' word often, bossy, yes, and abrasive - all because i know what i want and i am not ashamed of expressing it. My parents are both immigrants from Europe and i relish in the fact that they raised me to have a head on my shoulder and not dismiss my thoughts or opinions simply because i am a female. I am raising my daughter the same way.
Comment: Prediction; you will be divorced by 30 and your daughter by 25. Good luck to both of you.
Comment: I will wager her daughter is divorced by age 25.
Comment: I find overbearing, pompous control freaks who think it is their life mission to tell us all what to do completely obnoxious no matter what their gender affiliation. It is not a quality or trait in any person I want to be around at work or in my social life. Encouraging "bossiness" is an idiot's errand.
Assertivem
Comment: I'm not certain which playgrounds Ms. Deveny has been frequenting, but they certainly aren't south of the Mason-Dixon, where I frequently hear boys described as "bossy." In fact, one of my favorite playground quotes comes from an eight-year-old male who declared of his nine-year-old companion, "Danny-boss is so bossy he thinks he is the boss of God!" It seems to me another instance of pseudo-feminism straining out gnats while swallowing camels.
Comment: I lived in Georgia (way south of the Mason-Dixon) for over a decade and I would still agree that the bossy title is more attributed to girls than boys. I'm a 35 year old man, not a guy normally described as a pseudo-feminist.
Comment: Oh good. I thought it was just me. As a high school teacher I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with students (male and female) who possessed highly sophisticated leadership skills and bossy was never one of them. In fact, bossy was the kiss-of-death for anyone trying to "lead" a group of teenagers. What these student leaders all had in common was the ability to listen and work WITH others, taking advantage of individual strengths and supporting weaknesses, quietly and WITHOUT ego. And, most importantly, in the end, the whole was much greater than the sum of its parts. I'm not sure if any of these students set out to be leaders, but everyone certainly wanted to follow.
Comment: Tolerating bossy behavior in any child is a bad idea, yet the author somehow seems to embrace it in the name of "equality".
How sickening; she certainly isn't doing her daughter any favors.
Comment: The footsoldiers in the gender wars are sending up flak barrages again I see. I fail to see where boys come in as ''assertive and confident''[a sweeping assertion that none of the authors back with facts,a de rigure tactic of the sides in these gender wars],when they are floating in Ritalin and other behavior-changing drugs that lend to neither condition being able to exist.More boys than girls are medicated. More boys than girls suffer from autism [a fact acknowlaged by both APAs]. Can such a linkage be made to decreasing numbers of boys entering college? Who knows? But playing fast and loose with facts while painting the world as though sufferagettes were still being hauled to jail in calaboose wagons is not lending itself to knowlage either. A ''Poor ''grade to the above piece.
Comment: "Bossy" is not a leadership style, it's just bullying, without the implication of physical violence (which is called bullying).
People don't like bossy men or bossy women, but we seldom apply the word "bossy" to men/boys because we usually apply the word "bully."
Assertiveness, on the other hand, is a leadership style, and is used effectively by both men and women. It is a way of stating one's needs without trampling on someone else's needs. Maybe the author is proud to be considered bossy, but most people wouldn't be.
But I disagree that we only ask girls to walk a "very fine line" - we ask both sexes to walk a fine line. As the parent of both a boy and a girl, it is obvious to me that we don't do a good job in this society of helping boys become assertive without being bullies AND we don't do a good job of helping girls be assertive without being bossy, or the other 'b' word.
Both girls AND boys need to be taught effective assertiveness skills - the shy ones who don't assert themselves enough, and the aggressive ones who assert themselves too much.
True leadership, regardless of gender, is always easy to recognize. It is even easier to recognize ineffective and bad leadership - we instantly know it when we see it. That we use different adjectives for girls vs. boy is irrelevant - bossy or bully, nobody likes 'em.
Comment: The term "BOSSY GIRL" only get girls in trouble, but yes a lot women show leadership skills even in early childhood years, most guys will tell you that. Teach them to be leaders withhout being bossy and they'll grow up to be real leaders, all the energy they waste trying to be bossy let them invest it in listening.
Comment: Nobody tells boys not to be bossy, because those with bossy personalities either beat down all the others or are themselves beaten down -- literally. Pretty quickly, everyone learns their place.
I'm all for the kind of equality Ms. Deveny propounds. Let girls fight each other like boys, until the dust settles and a leader emerges.
In fact, the head games that girls suffer are most often inflicted by other girls. I guess they don't want to play the leadership game the way boys do.
Comment: This is a load of crap. I'm sorry but it is. What do you call bossy boys? Easy, bullies. Maybe you've heard of them. We've been referring to them as such basically since time begun. There are two schools of thought on leadership: one holds that you have to be bossy and the other holds that you have to be empathetic and require cooperation. It's not sexist. It's simply a different viewpoint between Type A and Type B personalities. I'm not putting a right or wrong on it, I'm just saying hte notion that this is purely gender is ridiculous. People push for whatever advantage they can find. The recent political campaign has convinced the followers of one particular candidate that now bossy women are somehow horribly put upon. Not true. People get tired of bossy people. Period. They are currently out of vogue as a leadership style. As all things are cyclical, relax I'm sure they'll come back in soon enough. Let a more passive leader get up there, not pay enough attention to detail and bossy people will once again be on the ascendant. Until everyone tires of their micro-managing ways. And the cycle will begin again. But to blame it all on sexism is absurd and frankly getting tiresome.
Comment: collegevoter you are so right! People get ti tired of bossy individuals no matter of the sex of that specific individual (period). This above article is another example of the crazy feminists that want to blame everything on sex and are creating egocentric monsters who once married cause a great deal of heartache to their children and their spouses (the kind that are on Dr. Phil for help).
Comment: Yep
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