I never identified with the tacky (or cheugy, as Lanigan puts it) girlboss trend, nor can I relate to girlfailure — both are renditions of willful (mal)adaptation to patriarchal capitalism. I see these dichotomous identifiers as just more trendy, packaged labelling that pigeonholes women in the labour force: you’re either the Prada devil on top, or now, the one whose awkward and inescapable fallibility in an overworked world pegs her as a (fashionably redeemable) loser…
Recently I became aware of the new ‘girlfailure’ trend on social media and in meme culture. This is thanks to some enthusiastic re-posts of an article whose subtitle proclaims, “All hail the girlfailure.”
The author of the article, Roisin Lanigan, describes ‘girlfailure’ as an emergent antithetical character to the ‘girl boss’ made popular by Millennial pursuits of female corporate empowerment. The article subtitle boasts, “The girlboss ancestor is here and she's a massive loser. Thank god.”1 Lanigan decries the preceding feminist wave that inspired the girlboss, explaining that the impetus was, “nothing more than a fallacy, a fourth wave choice feminism that believed in freeing the nipple and hyperindividualism and adopting Glossier cloud paint as a personality trait and not much else. As we’ve collectively become more cognisant of a different kind of feminism — one that looks to address structural issues of racism, sexism and ableism as the only way to affect positive change — rather than individual personal success [sic].” I wholeheartedly agree with Lanigan that feminisms that recognize and subvert structural oppression are effectively nuanced ways forward in our current global calamity. However, the proposed ‘failure’ is also individualistic and so, before we all hop on the girlfailure bandwagon, I have a slightly different take.
I never identified with the tacky (or cheugy, as Lanigan puts it, in Gen Z terms) girlboss trend, nor can I relate to girlfailure — both are renditions of willful (mal)adaptation to patriarchal capitalism. I see these dichotomous identifiers as just trendy, packaged labelling that pigeonholes women in the labour force: you’re either the Prada devil on top, or now, the one whose awkward and inescapable fallibility in an overworked world pegs her as a (fashionably redeemable) loser. This is actually nothing new; popular media has always portrayed ‘girl’ fuck-uppery as alluring.2 It tracks with the enduring, infantilizing trope of the helpless female, who, in the case of girlfailure is helpless in achieving culturally defined success—all whilst languishing in capitalist privilege, as Lanigan provides an example of: “Even characters that had once been considered aspirational are ripe for reclamation as girlfailures instead; Carrie Bradshaw might have had a Manhattan apartment and hundreds of pairs of Manolos on a Vogue columnist salary, but she also fucked up every single romantic relationship she had, was a truly awful friend, and she loved smoking in her bedroom. But she’s a laugh! She dresses nice!” And, whilst Western media popularizes the characters of girlboss and girlfailure as complementary for the sake of consumable comedic drama, this bipolar swing between bitch and whelp/ ‘welp!’ ultimately positions us as uneven, supporting the longstanding patriarchal excuse for continued control.3
Feminism is and should be an intergenerational mingle. It’s reasonable (and necessary) to call out the failings of former feminisms; these become recognizable as areas of overlooked cultural privilege in the shifting sands of time, but when ageism is thrown into the mix by wholesale disparaging and tossing out feminist movements generationally, it perpetuates the kinds of compartmentalization that capitalism loves to profit from—hence, the new face of feminism becomes another market product, inevitably. That which can be compartmentalized into quantifiable units (e.g. Gen Z), can be commodified. We’ve certainly seen the mass marketability of Millennial pink, for example.
Lanigan makes a valid point that the underlying reality of the girlfailure trend is that when success is viewed as a personal achievement, as it is in Western(ized) cultures, the pressure to perform becomes untenable in many cases, leaving young women overwhelmed and exhausted. We are all exhausted—this is an imprint of capitalism that negatively impacts everyone, cleaving people from their kin, communities and lovers in search of the next big goal (or even just paycheck). As someone chasing a PhD on the complete opposite side of the planet to where I originate from, choosing to leave behind family, friends, etc. to pursue this privileged, high-pressure goal, I can attest to the sleepy seduction of embracing failure—and just going ‘home’, wherever that is, anymore…
Where is home? Home is where we rest, and where we labour to cultivate our committments to communities that we can, in turn, feel supported within. Intergenerational feminism can serve as the backbone of such community, an accessible antidote to the senses of alienation and disenfranchisement that are hallmarks of capitalist compartmentalization. During professional travels that have seen me utterly bedraggled as I circumnavigate the globe, home necessarily felt like wherever I found people that I could anchor myself to. Importantly, I come home regularly to my coven—an international (and sometimes hyperlocal) technofeminist circle that I have nurtured for the past four years, to faciliate the exact kind of intergenerational feminism I’m talking about.
Bioart Coven embraces and builds a community-based feminism where mentorship is nonhierarchical, where our ages and experience levels enrich each other equitably, where leadership is rotating, and where exchange is an engagement with both successes and struggles/failures. Not only do we celebrate our achievements, but also earnestly listen to each other unravelling our difficulties. This is all structured within the context of tearing down capitalist limitations that have disenfranchised us, through knowledge sharing.4
Lest we succumb to the incessant downward drag into societal inertia that could (and does) atrophy our communities, let’s see the latest girlfailure trope for what it might be: a tired deferral to narrow misogynist parameters for feminine performance. I’ll be the first to agree that the girlboss can certainly take a seat, but the girlfailure shouldn’t be afraid to step the fuck up eventually. Intergenerational feminist oddkin inter-depend on each other; that’s the thing that dissolves the chronic separation that leads to individual exhaustion—so, let’s stop punching the clock on community.
I assume the word ‘ancestor’ here is actually meant to be ‘descendent,’ since the girlboss precedes the girlfailure identifier.
Misunderstood and trendy female fuck-ups have always proliferated in media culture, whether popular or subversive. She is: the 1920s coquette, the manic pixie dream girl, the riot grrl, Girl Interrupted, the Millennial sick girl or sad girl, and the list goes on.
Here I’m thinking specifically of the characters of Brianna and Mallory Hanson on the Netflix series, Grace & Frankie. One of the main characters, played by Jane Fonda (a Boomer-aged ‘girlboss’), built a corporate brand and handed it over to her two ambition-divergent daughters, Brianna and Mallory.
You can see more about Bioart Coven on my website here: https://www.whitefeatherhunter.ca/bioartcoven