Just yesterday I was laughing at how all of my daughter’s friends seemed to be just as bossy as her. They are all about six years old; very sure of who they are and what they want. At first, I thought it was a compliment. But then I thought: Why the need to point these attributes as bossy? Would I have done this had my nephew and his friends behaved the same way? Through some more research, I came across a project that points out that the “bossy” adjective, is a loaded one.

“Calling a girl ‘bossy’ when she asserts her voice—a word we rarely use for little boys—sends the message that girls should not speak up,” reads Leadership Tips for Parents by LeanIn.org and Girl Scouts of USA. The downloadable PDF is part of an initiative by the two groups: Ban Bossy.

When telling our children that girls who speak up are bossy, this foreshadows the unnecessary future dilemmas for these children as women: don’t be too assertive, keep your voice down, stop being so sensitive. In other words, it teaches that leadership roles are not for girls and women. If speaking up is equated with bossy, and bossy is bad, the message becomes: don’t be bossy; don’t speak up. We see this play out in school all the time: the hands of girls stop going up in grade school, and sentences begin to start with, “I’m not sure, but.” Statements are posed as questions, so as to not appear too confident—too bossy—in what is being said.

As adults, we need to be careful with pushing this mindset: it is already promoted enough in the media, and we can’t be everywhere the kidlets are to fight against these stereotypes.

Gloria Steinem is quoted in saying, “If you and I [women],  every time we pass a mirror, downgrade on how we look or complain about our looks, if we remember that a girl is watching us, and that’s what she’s learning.”

This applies by how we speak and act as well. Women should not be afraid of asserting themselves: saying no to that extra volunteer project that there is no time for, sending bad food back at a restaurant, telling someone how they feel, asking questions.

The men in a young girl’s life are just as important. Ban Bossy’s booklet advises that dads and granddads be aware of their own words and actions: “They matter. Show respect for the girls and women in your life and in hers to help her develop high expectations of other men. Speak out against cultural messages that tell her to value her physical appearance above all else. Let her know you value her for who she is inside.”

International Women’s Day just passed, and we gave deserved nods to the women who fought for our rights and to give us the push to continue future work. By teaching our girls progressive values—letting them know they are valued—we are investing in a stronger future for women.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna writes Gender Block every week and maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Emma Woolley at Shameless has provided a comprehensive overview of why International Women’s Day still matters. The upshot is that while the last century has seen improvements for women—especially white, economically privileged, heterosexual, cisgendered ones—that oppression is still the norm around the world and around the corner.

Recently Wendy Glauser wrote on the This blog about the uses of “girl power” imagery in the marketing of Plan Canada’s “Because I Am A Girl” campaign. Keshet Bachan yesterday responded with an interesting post at GirlsReport, about the tensions and harmonies of radical and liberal feminisms. One of Canada’s most radical feminist actions was the 1970 Abortion Caravan, which travelled across the country demonstrating for reproductive justice and ended up shutting down parliament in a spectacular protest that played an important role in securing reproductive sovereignty for Canadian women. Nick Taylor-Vaisey interviewed Barbara Freeman last spring about the caravan and the agressive media strategy its activists used.

I’ll also direct your attention to Katie Addleman’s cover story from our July-August 2010 issue on why voting reform is a feminist issue. It’s worth remembering that Canada ranks shockingly poorly for women’s representation in elected office — below rich European countries like Norway and Sweden, but also below troubled, impoverished states like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Burundi.

Not all change comes at the ballot box, of course, through capital-P Politics. Arts and culture play a huge part in changing social mores. In November 2008 we published Alison Lee’s popular cover story on feminist pornography, and the ways in which women are reclaiming porn, both as consumers and producers (that essay appears in the 2009 edition of Best Canadian Essays, by the way). Last summer, Natalie Samson interviewed Canadian rapper Eternia about the gender dynamics of hip hop, a world in which macho swagger is the norm and female MCs struggle to break through with audiences. Finally, I’ll slip in a link to my own post about the crazy masculinity-panic that seems to periodically afflict the media, and serves to obscure hard truths about the actual gender dynamics of our society.

I highlight these examples of our reporting on issues of feminism and women’s rights because I think it’s important to say that while we’ll mark International Women’s Day, gender justice—for This as a media outlet and an organization—is not now, and will never be, a “special occasion,” relegated to one day of the year. The struggle for gender equality is one in which This has participated for 45 years, and we intend to continue—today, tomorrow, all year, every year.