Rhiannon Joyce

It was like very female skewed and it was very much about connecting and networking in an environment where, you know, you could get exposure to other people who were like-minded.

Great concept.

Great concept.

Laced with controversies, there were actually reports at the time about the working conditions, but Audrey and the founder of Reformation, Yael Aflalo, both of them have recently come back into their roles.

And that's what the Vogue article was really, really trying to focus on is, you know, why did these women have to go away or go quiet?

And does this actually signal that Girlboss 2.0 is back?

It was like work and life went into one and your life became your work and it became your identity.

Busy.

It was like a branding.

I'm so busy.

This is very much busy is the word that always comes front of mind for me or top of mind.

I'm like, oh, my God, I'm so busy.

It's like people wearing that as a badge of honor.

I think it's really important to acknowledge a lot of this culture of what was embraced was actually really fucking toxic.

oh yeah, like a lot of what was branded as ambition was straight up exploitation.

And maybe it wasn't in all of those businesses or maybe, you know, just pulling away from these businesses as a whole and looking at that culture of that era, it was absolutely laced in exploitation.

This was also backed by Kate Lindsay, who was the author of the Embedded Newsletter and host of ICYMI.

She also worked at Refinery29 in the heart of the Girl Boss era.

And she said a lot of what was branded as ambition was actually exploitation that you were okay with and the business was

with.