Ambition, identity and ‘success’ in the post girlboss era: What now?

In pursuit of a happy place between hustle and tradwife.

“This is it,” I thought, stepping through security toward the lifts.

The foyer was everything I’d imagined. The city buzzed through oversized arched windows framed by red oak – just like the editorial offices I’d seen in movies. Heels clacking on marble floors echoed in high ceilings as women flurried past – coffees in hand, eyes fixed ahead – each urgent step punctuating the morning rush.

Through my 21-year-old lens, these women looked stylish, determined and important. I idolised them.

Almost 14 years later, after carving the career that idealistic 21-year-old was dreaming of, I see that scene quite differently. But more on that later, because said idealistic 21-year-old was about to start an internship with Cosmopolitan magazine in Sydney, Australia.

The year was 2012. Instagram was in its infancy, ‘influencer’ was not a job title, and print still reigned in publishing – but digital was rapidly encroaching. It would be one year before Sheryl Sandberg told women to ‘lean in’, and two years before Sophie Amaruso turned #GirlBoss into a cultural phenomenon.

A child of the 90s and early 2000s, I was (back then, quite ignorantly) riding second and third wave feminism into the workforce. With ambitions and expectations shaped by the likes of Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Andi Anderson, Miranda Prirestly and Jenna Rink, I grew up glorifying busy women with walk-in wardrobes.

Fuelled by skinny cappuccinos, diet coke, and cortisol, they used their ovens as storage, drank cocktails every night, and seemed immune to the need for sleep or basic nutrition.

And for most of my twenties, I thought I was, too.

I spent much of that Cosmopolitan internship in awe of the young women in the office. They were rushing in and out, interviewing celebrities, going to chic events, and often too busy to leave their desks or have lunch (so important! So impressive!).

After it, I went on to write freelance (for Cosmo, and others) while working in the high-octane world of consumer PR in London. I had the fancy office with high ceilings and echo-y marble floors. I was flown to Berlin and Prague to host fancy events and stay in high-end hotels. I met and worked with celebrities. I swapped lunch for deadlines and never – like, ever – cooked or ate at home.

I had big global accounts, managed people older than me and – on paper – was absolutely killing it. Everyone back home kept telling me so.

I was also averaging about five hours sleep a night, working 10-12 hours a day, eating terribly, extremely stressed, and deeply unfulfilled. Needing to pee was a major inconvenience, because it pulled me away from my desk for six minutes.

Sound familiar, dear reader?

One day, after an urgent client request for something utterly trivial (an announcement about shampoo, if memory serves) gave my body the physiological reaction of being chased by a bear, I stopped to survey my surroundings.

Beside me, women were glued to their desks, where they would be for another 10 or so hours without taking a proper break. Past them, women were glued to their phones, pacing frantically around the office as they answered a million requests and told their families they wouldn’t make it home for dinner.

In a moment of clarity, I realised I didn’t actually aspire to be like any of them – in any way. And a few days later, I quit.

It took me years and a lot of striving and stress to realise that defining myself by my job title was very much not it—not at all, actually. And it turns out, much of the world agrees. The era of the girlboss has come and gone, its remnants scattered across think pieces dissecting burnout culture, the illusion of meritocracy, and the quiet quitting movement.

Gen Z, watching millennials work themselves into the ground, seems far less convinced that career success is the sole metric of a meaningful life. Meanwhile, even some of the most visible ‘lean in’ leaders have subtly stepped back—pivoting toward softer messaging, work-life balance, or simply… disappearing from public view.

Yet, in its place, we’ve seen another extreme rise—feeds now filled with the anti-girlboss movement: tradwives romanticising 1950s gender roles, self-proclaimed anti-feminists rejecting career ambition entirely, amongst a wave of ‘cozzie livs’ content proclaiming that it’s all pointless because a good life is unattainable, anyway.

For those of us who don’t want to grind ourselves into dust or opt out completely, what’s left? What does ambition look like when you still want to feel fulfilled, but also well-rested? When you want to be useful, but not used up?

If ‘leaning in’ no longer serves us, but ‘leaning out’ doesn’t sit right either — where, exactly, do we land?