The Girlboss Was Basically Just Patriarchy in Lipstick.

She walks into the boardroom. The click-clack of her black stilettos against the polished floor isn't just a sound—it's an announcement. She's wearing the uniform of the modern victor: a perfectly tailored blazer, razor-sharp red lipstick, and a presence so calculated it could pass for a business strategy. Every head turns. Every conversation falls silent. She is the archetype. The blueprint of female success. Effortlessly dominating a room full of men who don't quite know whether they should be intimidated or impressed. We've all seen her before. She's the woman on the cover of every magazine, the LinkedIn avatar of our dreams, and the standard we're told to meet if we ever want to be taken seriously. She looks powerful. At least, that's what we've been taught power looks like. Or maybe she just looks like every powerful person we've ever seen. Ironically, one of the most feminine symbols of power wasn't even invented for women. But we'll get there.

But I couldn't help but wonder...

Why does female power so often look masculine? Why is it that the moment we step into our authority, we feel the need to dress, speak, and even think in borrowed suits? When did power become something women had to perform instead of define? Who decided that power had only one aesthetic? What if we've never redefined power at all? What if we simply taught women how to wear it differently? What if the problem isn't that women entered the room—but that we were handed someone else's script the moment we did?

Maybe we've mistaken imitation for liberation. Take Elle Woods. Most people remember Legally Blonde as the story of a woman who proved herself at Harvard. But that isn't where her story begins. Before Harvard, Elle was already accomplished. She was intelligent, socially influential, academically accomplished, and an exceptional brand builder long before "personal branding" became a corporate obsession. She was admired by her peers and deeply invested in the things she loved. Yet none of it was considered serious.

When Warner tells her, "You're not serious enough," he isn't saying she lacks ambition. He's saying her ambition doesn't look the way he expects it to. Elle Woods didn't lack ambition. She lacked legitimacy in the eyes of a culture that only recognizes ambition when it wears a different costume. The irony is that Elle never became powerful by becoming less feminine. She became powerful the moment she stopped apologizing for it. And maybe that's the story women have been living for much longer than we've realized. Maybe we've never been asked to become powerful. Maybe we've simply been asked to make our power look more familiar. It's as if we were told that, to be taken seriously, we had to borrow the costume of power before we were ever allowed to redefine it.

And for centuries, that costume came with a tie.

And then there were the heels. If there is one object we've collectively agreed represents female power, it's the stiletto. It has become almost cinematic: the sharp click against a marble floor, the impossible height, the confidence it promises before a single word is spoken. Somewhere along the way, we decided that power should sound like heels echoing down a hallway.

But I couldn't help wondering... who wrote that scene?

Because here's what's fascinating: high heels didn't begin as a symbol of femininity at all. They were first worn by Persian horsemen, who needed them to stay secure in their stirrups while riding into battle. Centuries later, European kings and aristocrats adopted them—not because they were beautiful, but because they projected authority, wealth, and status. The taller the heel, the greater the power. They weren't designed to make anyone look delicate. They were designed to make men look important.

Women entered the story much later. At first, only courtesans wore heels, partly because they occupied one of the few spaces where women were allowed to borrow symbols that belonged to men. Eventually, fashion changed. Men abandoned the heel. Women didn't. And over time, something extraordinary happened. The shoe changed feet. Power didn't. Maybe that's why we still mistake one for the other. The meaning changed. Or at least, that's what we tell ourselves.

Because sometimes I wonder if the symbol changed more than the idea behind it. Maybe the heel didn't become feminine. Maybe we simply inherited a symbol that had already been carrying someone else's definition of authority for centuries.

Which led me to wonder something even bigger. How many of the things we've been taught represent female power were actually designed to represent power long before women were ever invited into the room?

Maybe that's why so many of us learned to associate authority with sharper shoulders, lower voices, tailored blazers, and shoes that make walking feel like a negotiation. Not because women naturally chose these symbols, but because they were already hanging in the wardrobe of power when we finally arrived. Perhaps we've mistaken access for reinvention. We stepped into the room. But no one ever asked us whether we wanted to redesign it.

Not every woman chose to wear the costume. Some simply refused to believe it was the only one available. For decades, Hollywood rewarded a very particular image of creative authority. The great director was expected to be uncompromising, loud, obsessive, and in complete control of every room they entered. Even the language we use reflects that expectation—we admire directors who "command" a set, "dominate" an industry, or "take control" of a production. Once again, power is described as something that occupies space rather than transforms it.

Sofia Coppola never seemed interested in performing that version of authority. She didn't try to become louder than everyone else or prove that she belonged by adopting the same language of power. Instead, she built an entirely different cinematic vocabulary. While many filmmakers searched for spectacle, Coppola became fascinated by stillness. While others relied on conflict, she trusted silence.

Her films don't demand attention; they invite it. Lost in Translation finds intimacy in moments that most directors would cut away from, while Marie Antoinettetransforms softness, beauty, and loneliness into subjects worthy of epic storytelling. She didn't imitate the existing definition of creative power—she quietly expanded it.

And maybe that's what creation has always done. It doesn't ask, How do I fit into this room? It asks, What if the room looked different? That's the difference between performance and creation. Performance asks for recognition. Creation changes the culture first, and recognition usually arrives later. It doesn't ask for permission to dominate. It quietly changes the atmosphere until the room forgets it was ever arranged differently.

Maybe that's why the most transformative people rarely look like the blueprint they were handed.

They don't inherit the script. They rewrite it.

This isn't an argument against heels, tailored blazers, or the women who genuinely love them. The problem has never been the costume itself. The problem begins when a costume quietly becomes a requirement—when it stops being a choice and starts feeling like the price of admission. Somewhere along the way, we confused symbols of power with power itself, until it became almost impossible to separate the two. We learned to believe that authority had a dress code, that credibility came with sharper silhouettes and lower voices, and that the closer we resembled the people who had always held power, the more deserving of it we would become.

But I couldn't help wondering if we've been measuring power by the wrong standard all along.

When I think about the most powerful women I've encountered, I rarely remember what they were wearing. I remember what they created. A company that started as a scribble in the margins of a notebook. A novel that changed the way someone saw the world. A friendship that lasted decades.

A family. A community. A home. A movement. A second chance. Even the quiet decision to rebuild a life after everything had fallen apart. None of these things announce themselves the way a pair of stilettos does. They don't echo down marble hallways or command attention the moment they enter a room. Yet their impact lasts infinitely longer.

Maybe we've been defining creation too narrowly. We tend to associate it with motherhood, but creation has never belonged to a single role or a single identity. Every time we bring something meaningful into the world that wasn't there before, we create. Sometimes that looks like raising a child.

Sometimes it looks like building a business, writing an essay at midnight, planting a garden, composing a song, inventing a recipe, or having the courage to reinvent yourself after life has asked you to start over. Creation isn't simply an act of making; it's an act of believing that something better can exist—and then choosing to bring it into being.

Perhaps that's the version of power we've overlooked. Not because it's smaller, softer, or less ambitious, but because it doesn't always perform itself in ways we've been taught to recognize. We've spent centuries celebrating the power that conquers. Maybe it's time we gave equal attention to the power that transforms. The power that nurtures an idea until it becomes reality. The power that leaves the world slightly different than it found it. Maybe that's what strength has always looked like when nobody was watching.

Power that needs a costume is probably just performance. Creation doesn't need one.

Maybe power was never meant to be heard.

Maybe it was always meant to be felt.

Maybe she still walks into the boardroom.

Maybe she's wearing stilettos.

Maybe she's wearing ballet flats.

Maybe she's wearing sneakers.

For the first time, it doesn't really matter.

Because the most powerful thing about her was never the shoes she wore into the room. It was the world she was capable of creating once she was inside it. Maybe we've spent centuries teaching women how to enter rooms. Perhaps it's finally time we let them redesign them.

---

Photo © Emily Ratajkowski Photographed by Renell Medrano