From http://banbossy.com/

When a little boy asserts himself, he's called a “leader.” Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded “bossy.” Words like bossy send a message: don't raise your hand or speak up. By middle school, girls are less interested in leading than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood. Together we can encourage girls to lead.

The confidence
gap starts early.
Between elementary and high school, girls’
self–esteem drops 3.5 times more than boys’.

Bossy holds
girls back.
Girls are twice as likely as boys to worry that
leadership roles will make them seem “bossy.”

Girls get less
airtime in class.
They are called on less
and interrupted more.

I don't understand this.
Being assertive or a leader doesn't mean you're 'bossy', and being 'bossy' doesn't make you a leader or assertive. Being 'bossy' means you tell others what to do, usually without allowing their input at all. Being assertive or a leader means convincing others to do what you (or your group) want them to. I never saw this as a gender issue until this campaign.
I feel it should be more like "Don't be bossy, be a leader". It's about learning how to lead without dictating, to me, not about gender. Perhaps girls just need better leadership classes, but not another useless 'word ban'.

I thought this was another 4chan mass-troll when i first heard of it. Perhaps it will be this year's "Kony 2012." I've never heard anyone called bossy that wasn't striding around demanding things, telling people what they should be doing without consideration for the situation, etc. I've never heard anyone called a leader that wasn't a problem-solver with a good ability to express themselves. Part of me wants to believe this is some sort of inter-Atlantic difference because i've been so isolated from any evidence of it being a problem.

I've got three points and i'll try to make them succinct. If anyone wants to pull me up on them, i'll go further.

1. The word bossy is not inherently sexist. Sometimes people are bossy. Calling a girl bossy doesn't make you sexist. This campaign can make villains out of people in the same way that a girl getting called bossy can unfairly stereotype a strong willed woman. At best it trades one form of unfairness for another.

2. Human beings come in two flavours. One of them is man, another is woman. Man and woman are different. They will never in the foreseeable future be equal in all things, and it is not sexist a) to say that or b) for that to be the norm. This is the way of the animal kingdom - we see it in animals, and we are animals. Because of our different chemical composition, we will have a natural role diversity that is is absolutely unavoidable and has nothing to do with fairness. In lieu of this, any study that says "gender A is less represented in field B because sexism," has a hell of a lot of factors to take into account, some of which i'm not even sure can be accounted for. I am in no way stating that all of one particular gender are better than all of the other gender at any given thing; i am saying that on average, testosterone and oestrogen will soften or harden the heart in different ways (to simplify the argument) which will lead on average to gender weighting. It is going to take a lot more than a few poems and forceful statements to convince me. Where are the sources and the studies, and what authority do they have? Furthermore where are the studies about word-prohibition in the grand scheme of solving problems? i.e. How do we know this is a good idea even if there is a problem?

3. "Banning" a word empowers that word for those who would use it for harm. Or people will find a new way of expressing the same idea. In Britain people thought that UKIP (*spit*) should be kept off TV because giving them political air-time legitimised them. In actual fact, the better idea (and eventual decision) was to put them on TV and allow them to make idiots of themselves with their inherent stupidity. I suggest a similar thing is true of banning the word bossy. Let it be said, and make it abundantly clear how wrong it is when it gets said.

This was a really bad idea that stems from a great intention. And for the record, i love bossy girls - it would benefit me to see more empowered woman in the world. It's not easy finding them.

My daughter has been leading on her robotics team; in the particular format they're in, there's a huge number of things on which they're judged, not just how the robot works in competition. Most of the rest of the team has been disinterested in anything but tinkering with the robot, but due to a lot of hard work and yes, leadership from my daughter, they won state and are going to regionals. However, there's been a lot of sexism on the team (and from mentors)--nothing too overt, but it's there. Basically, the boys on the team would all be happy to have my daughter on the team so long as she was quiet and just kind of let them look at her, but since she's trying (successfully) to improve the team's performance, she's "bossy" and has been told she needs to work on her tone.

I've been present for a lot of the team working time, and I'm 100% fucking sure that if she were a boy, everyone would be talking about what a great leader she was.

Fact of the matter is that people do respond differently to the exact same input delivered by people of different genders, and we should work to change that. It's not about the specific word "bossy", it's about the different standards of what's allowable based on gender. The fact that you guys are fixated on the one specific word suggests to me that you completely missed the point in a rush to defend the rights of the poor, oppressed guys who are obviously being victimized by another "word ban".

Dumbest, oversensitive, stupid thing I've seen all day and I'm pretty damned liberal. It is important to give ALL kids positive encouragement, but banning the word "bossy" is just idiocy. No.

First, it sounds like they tried to tell you and her that it's not an issue with her leading, it's an issue of TONE. That's what makes one BOSSY. Leaders don't just dictate to their team. (in your example, it sounds like the team may have needed some bossing).
Second, how can you possibly be 100% certain of a hypothetical situation that didn't happen? That certitude in the unknowable possible future is a problem. It's just a likely that a boy, acting like your daughter, would have gotten the same flack back.
Your certitude of your assumption about how a boy would be reacted to was the only true sexism I saw in your post.
I've seen many boys called 'bossy' when they were being bossy. I've seen many girls called positive leaders. It's about HOW you lead, not IF you lead.

You know guys, I would've felt the same way you do--before I had to see the shit my daughter has gone through this year in a male-dominated environment. Having had the experience I've had, I'll say that I think this video and the idea behind it are a good thing.

Moving this video to Ickster's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

I think you just miss the point. It's less about the word but more about the way our still male dominated society reacts to women speaking up, taking charge, setting limits or simply standing their ground.
There's still this idea going around that women need to be pleasant, softspoken and less assertive than men. Once they're not they become the dragon, the bitch, the crazy one or the bossy chick.
Just look at the Joe Scarborough where he starts talking dumb shit about missing planes and the female co-host tries to veer the program into the direction it's supposed to go and avoid making a fool out of themnselves. What's his reaction? He ridicules her. What's the first comment under that video? "Man, she's bossy!"
That shit simply doesn't happen to men. And this needs to erradicated at the roots, our children. That's why they fit this into a simpler message. One that parents can easily convey to their children.