Girlboss”. This exact term, once a glittering crown decorating every other social media campaign, sparkling on LinkedIn highlights and worn proudly by women’s side hustles, start-ups, and social lives, has dimmed. Between unpaid labour, Zoom meetings, and the tag “empowerment,” it has started to redefine its meaning. Constant burnout and collective fatigue among women have realised that having it all often means doing it all.
The early 2010s saw the rise of the girlboss era, which promised liberation and fuelled ambition. Women were told, wearing heels, they can run everything on their own. Success is no longer voluntary now — it is compulsory. If you aren’t following the standards of a constant routine, waking up at 5 in the morning, meditating, journaling and conquering the world before breakfast, are you even doing it right?
Fast forward to this time and age: women don’t dream of becoming a CEO; some just want to enjoy their lazy Sundays and relax. They realised that the price they paid for empowerment was often unpaid and disregarded, leading to emotional burnout and a constant state of exhaustion. The ambition is as real as it can become, but so is fatigue.
However, Pakistan offers a unique twist to this phenomenon. One must be ambitious, but not excessively so; one should earn money while always remembering the importance of roti. Many women are doing it all, leading offices and households both, and somewhere along the lines, the charm has faded. Now a new wave has spread under the motto of living a soft life; winning looks like following their creative passions and enjoying family life.
It is not solely about lacking ambition; rather, it involves redefining what ambition means. The girlboss hangover is not a failure of feminism; it is a form of evolution. Humorously, the symptoms are easy to identify, such as having an aversion to the phrase “networking opportunity” or rolling their eyes at “rise and grind,” instead preferring slow mornings and skincare routines. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that these women are uninspired; they’re only mistaking burnout for brilliance.
The girlboss era, all in all, taught women to chase success; the hangover, instead, is teaching them how to redefine it. Hence the women who no longer want to win have not given up; they are finally figuring out that the game was never designed for them to rest.