Why it happens when a woman takes lead in a situation, she is labeled as bossy or controlling? While the man in the same situation is celebrated as a leader! It is heart-breaking how society raises its little boys to be assertive, ambitious, and aggressive while young girls are asked to be meek, quiet, servile, and selfless!
Sadly, all the qualities – being assertive, ambitious, and aggressive – are so tightly linked with being a leader. So, indirectly society expects to raise men as leaders while women as mere followers!
Now, I don’t have an issue with being a follower, I have an issue when our genders become the core criteria of who can be a leader! No wonder many young girls with leadership qualities are labeled as bossy and controlling.
While we celebrate men for being the alpha male who can lead the pack, we shame or insult women for being the same.

Even in our own homes, we make a villain out of a woman, who is assertive, ambitious, and aggressive. We label her as unsanskaari for standing for herself and her dreams.
Our society leaves no chance to tell these assertive courageous women to lower their voices and talk like a lady! It shames them for not following the regressive social beliefs. It even tends to label them as ‘bad women’ only because they have opinions of their own that are quite different from society’s archaic thought process!
But that’s not just true for our homes. Even in our offices, this thought process is quite evident. When our bosses are ready to accept our male counterparts to be assertive but expect us to follow the invisible rules to speak briefly in the most pleasant voice so that we don’t tend to hurt the vulnerable male egos around us.
So, not only in our homes but also in our offices, women are expected to tiptoe around shallow egos to lead their lives.
On the same lines, in 2014, after Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg launched the ‘Ban Bossy’ campaign and set the ball rolling, she was backed by world-renowned women leaders and luminaries. This inspiring campaign argued that from a young age, girls are trained to be quiet and submissive. And if they dare to break these gender norms, they are often criticized, disliked, and called names that discourage them from growing up to be leaders.
Though many progressive parents are striving hard to raise strong women, who do not shy away from speaking their minds. But, the sad part is very few parents are raising men to accept these strong women.
That’s the reason why so many men, desire to be with strong women, but miserably fail to lead a happy life with them!
While I don’t know for how long women will have to pay the price for being a woman, I just wish parents, in empowering their daughters, don’t forget to empower their sons to lead a life with these strong women!