I Miss Girl Boss Feminism

 

Looking back at the Girl Boss era of feminism that inspired ambition, autonomy, and financial independence, and why choice feminism feels dangerously tame.

I hate choice feminism. Really, I do. As someone who grew up in the Girl Boss era, this new social media idea of feminism being about respecting every personal decision women make is, frankly, repulsive. In the words of the legendary bell hooks, “True feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom.” In Feminism Is for Everybody, she warns against feminism becoming a fun identity rather than a political movement. Yet I scroll through social media (especially Twitter) and see the gymnastics women are performing to sanitise the patriarchy. The notion that choosing to get married and have children is a feminist choice? Flabbergasting. Let’s be real — this has been the norm for women forever, in a structure designed to benefit the patriarchy itself.

Before Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie became controversial for TERF-adjacent stances, she was part of a cultural moment that defined the aesthetic of feminism in my teen years. Her poem on Beyoncé’s Flawless, paired with Queen B singing, “I took some time to live my life / don’t think I’m just his little wife”, literally put a battery in my young feminist self’s back. That was the energy I needed.

And when “girl dinner” and “girl math” were trending on socials, I naively thought we were just joking around. But now, as that friend who’s too woke, I see that these trends are part of a broader, subtle trad wife agenda. Women are infantilised, and it’s being framed as cute. No, honey — it’s patriarchal, and it’s annoying.

Growing up, my dream was to live every day like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex & The City: a flexible work schedule in a job I loved, expensive shoes, and quality time with my friends. I didn’t have the language for it then, but what really drew me in was autonomy and independence. Freedom to live life on my own terms, and the financial independence to make that possible. Mr Big? He was irrelevant.

Fast forward to today, and social media and mainstream culture feel like a hard U-turn to the 1950s. Advice about “switching off your brain” around your man or willingly submitting to him is everywhere. Even when women are portrayed as strong, they’re often still shown in subservient domestic roles. Yuck. And while Carrie and her girls weren’t perfect—they were male-centred sometimes—they lived full, financially independent lives. That independence mattered. It mattered a lot.

The Girl Boss era of feminism had flaws, many of them. But one thing it got right? Financial independence. Before that era, society glamourised women only taking up the roles of homemakers, wives, and mothers. Girl Boss feminism said: “Women can be CEOs, founders, brand builders, hustlers — and that’s valid.”

In a country like mine, with one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world, economic dependence is one of the leading reasons women stay in or return to abusive relationships. Financial independence gives women the ability to choose: where to live, who to date or leave, what to study, and what kind of life to build. Without money, even capable women can feel trapped. Pan-African studies show that economic vulnerability is a significant risk factor for intimate-partner violence, especially among women aged 25–29, rural women, or those from low-income households.

And yes — the Girl Boss era was critiqued, and rightly so. It often reduced liberation to personal success, aesthetic ambition, and corporate achievement. It centred mostly middle-class, white, privileged women and framed feminism as a hustle you could buy your way into, ignoring structural realities like class inequality, racialised labour, gender-based violence, and economic precarity.

But I’ll take the messiness of the Girl Boss era over what we have now. Feminism is increasingly treated like a girls’ club or a cute hashtag. Women are being encouraged and incentivised to sanitise the patriarchy and celebrate choices that often reinforce it—whether that’s glorifying subservience in relationships or presenting traditionally feminine domestic roles as “empowering.” This isn’t harmless fun; it’s dangerous. When feminism becomes palatable over purposeful, it risks normalising the very systems it’s supposed to dismantle. Instead of challenging oppression, we’re quietly being coaxed back into it, with a smile and a lipstick filter.

We cannot underestimate the stakes. In a world where Gender-Based Violence is rampant, where economic inequality traps women in cycles of abuse, and where structural barriers continue to exclude marginalised voices, the idea that feminism is about individual choices without context is reckless. Progress is not a buzzword, and it is certainly not a pastel-coloured social media trend. True progress requires questioning who benefits from every “choice” and ensuring that women—especially those most vulnerable—have real autonomy and protection. Without this, empowerment becomes performative, and liberation remains out of reach.

This is why we need feminism to be unapologetically political, intersectional, and radical in its vision. We must fight for financial independence, demand systemic reform, and push for a world where women can thrive without compromise. There is a middle ground between the aesthetic Girl Boss era and today’s sanitised choice feminism—a space where ambition, freedom, and liberation are accessible to all women. And I choose to believe we can get there, because the fight for women’s rights is too important to settle for anything less. Real progress is not optional; it’s necessary.