The term “girlboss” has taken on a variety of meanings since it was first introduced in 2014. Entrepreneur Sophia Amoruso is credited with coining the term that year when she published her memoir, titling it “#Girlboss.”
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Sophia Amoruso turned a small eBay shop into Nasty Gal, a $250M fashion empire. Her success sparked the #Girlboss movement after her bestselling memoir, but behind the rise was a rapid fall. Leadership struggles and financial missteps led to bankruptcy in 2016.
In 2006, Sophia Amoruso started an eBay shop that would later transform into the clothing company Nasty Gal. However, Amoruso’s rags-to-riches success with Nasty Gal didn’t last. After multiple rounds of layoffs and employee complaints, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2016.
This article from 2016 is a time capsule of sorts. It includes an interview with the person who coined the term “girlboss,” Nasty Gal founder Sophia Amoruso, that took place just after she appeared on the cover of Forbes magazine. We now know that her company would go on to file for bankruptcy the next year.
Eighty-five percent of those women were white. A data visualization breaks down what the face of corporate America looks like, plus provides information about the history of female CEOs on the Fortune 500 list.
Sheryl Sandberg, a top executive at Facebook, published "Lean In," her career-advice book for women, in 2013. The book would go on to spend more than a year on The New York Times Best Sellers list and contribute to a cultural movement.
Many of the female-founded companies of the “girlboss era” in the mid-2010s had one thing in common: A certain light shade of pink was core to their brand book. The color—deemed “millennial pink”—was found on the packaging of makeup company Glossier, the walls and logos of coworking space The Wing, and the suitcases of luggage company Away.
When Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin's husband died in the early 1800s, the Widow Clicquot (the word "veuve" means "widow" in French) took over the family's Champagne business—and turned it into the success it is today. She did so during a particularly unfavorable time for women in business.
Sophia Amoruso’s memoir, “#Girlboss,” spawned more than just a cultural movement—it also inspired an ill-fated television show that is remembered as one of Netflix’s first major failures.
In the 2010s, dozens of female founders were celebrated on the covers of business magazines like Inc. for their recent startup success, from Emily Weiss’s Glossier makeup brand to Steph Korey’s Away luggage company. But many of these companies were also the subject of large takedown articles around the year 2020.
What’s the difference between a girlboss and a career woman? The simplest answer, perhaps, is time. Once it was the term "career woman" that translated female ambition as selfish, immoral, and slightly ridiculous; now, "girlboss" does the job.
The United States is home to more than 33 million businesses, the vast majority of which are small businesses, with millions being created (and others closing shop) every year. These businesses often rely on loans, provide the goods and services that keep the economy flowing, and sometimes even grow large enough to enter public markets or provide private investment opportunities. Explore key topics central to business and finance, from the role of the Federal Reserve to how initial public offerings work, how millions of American students finance higher education, and more.