Rebecca Moore has some thoughts on the latest celebrity campaign

Beyonce wants us to stop calling girls ‘Bossy’. The singer, along with several other female celebrities, including Victoria Beckham, released a public service announcement film declaring, ‘I’m not bossy – I’m the boss’. I’ve always liked Beyonce: her hip-waggling alone is something to respect. Plus, she’s beautiful, she’s genuinely talented and she captured my teenage heart by having slightly larger thighs than most supermodels and still flaunting them.

However, this latest campaign of hers – while correct in some respects – may also put pressure on the girls who don’t desire leadership skills, or who – like me – have always shuddered at the thought of being in control of anything.

I’m barely in control of my mascara wand, and therefore have no desire to be in charge of actual people, with their own minds, and active body parts.

The idea behind their campaign is that we should encourage everyone to stop labelling girls ‘bossy’ since young men who take control are called ‘leaders’ and are referred to as ‘commanding’ while young women are termed, ‘bossy’ or ‘stubborn’.

Of course, this is pretty accurate: just imagine Margaret Thatcher’s face and the word ‘bossy’ (among other things) springs inevitably to mind.

However, one member of the campaign film tells girls that ‘there are no limits’. I hope they mean that in a vague sense there are no limits within the context of changing word definitions, because with regard to almost everything else there are limits to everyone’s lives, and the sooner people learn that, the happier they will be.

It’s all very well encouraging growth and spirit. But I’m sure that a major cause for unhappiness in society is the distance between people’s expectations – caused in part by having been told there are no limits – and their very limited reality.

For instance, a large part of me still believes that I’ll be able to fly some day, just like Peter Pan could and I’ll probably always be ever so slightly unhappy until the day I finally can.

This kind of rhetoric – ‘be powerful, be the boss’ – could actually make a large proportion of girls (and boys) feel inadequate. What if they have no desire to lead? What if they want to be quiet and let others lead?

These kind of well-intentioned but misfired statements aren’t necessarily always liberating: they simply demand something else of our young people – ultimately applying the same kind of pressure that the campaign is trying to avoid.