Happy Hump Day {{first_name | Toaster}} 🐪 ,

Remember the time when being called a girlboss was a compliment? It meant you were ambitious, independent, confident, and a leader. Probably wearing a blazer with the sleeves pushed up and drinking out of a mug that said: “Nevertheless, She Persisted.”

Then at some point, we collectively decided we hated her. Nowadays, being called a girlboss comes with a negative connotation.

The concept of being a girlboss was radical, because the term “boss” was mostly attributed to men. Women had spent decades being told they were too emotional, too soft, or too passive to lead. A boss was powerful. Putting “girl” in front of it was, in its own way, a reclamation.

The irony is that the girlboss was supposed to challenge patriarchal rules but eventually became more about winning within them and the well-intentioned concept got absorbed by the system it was originally meant to challenge. Empowerment became synonymous with adopting the same behaviours that had traditionally been rewarded in men (i.e. working constantly, being hyper-competitive, putting profit above everything else, never showing vulnerability, and treating exhaustion as proof of commitment). It’s like we were saying, “hey, women can work themselves to death too!”

The girlboss became paradoxical: she challenges the idea that women can't have power, while reinforcing the idea that power has to look a certain way.

Our audience members may look at Toast and think girlboss. Feed an AI model enough information about Toast and it can pretty quickly spit back the usual girlboss-adjacent language to describe our brand: empowering, uplifting, fearless, stepping into your power, boss babe. We may sound like a girlboss starter pack, but it’s actually something we’re pretty intentional about dismantling.

We don't want to tell women they need to perform a particular version of ambition to deserve power, opportunity, or success. And we definitely don't want to imply that if you just work hard enough, you'll overcome every structural barrier in your way.

Sometimes you don't need a better morning routine, you need better pay. Sometimes you don't need to lean in; you need a manager who doesn't penalize you for having boundaries. Sometimes you don't need someone encouraging you to advocate for yourself; you need someone to actually open the door.

A successful woman isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some are loud, assertive and naturally commanding. Others are more introverted, thoughtful and collaborative. Some want to run the company, some want to become the world's best individual contributor. She can be ambitious without being exhausted, and successful without being ruthless. She can be powerful without becoming exactly like the people who held the power before her.

Perhaps we don’t need to retire girl boss entirely; maybe we just need another iteration that is less “look at me, I made it” and more, “look at how many different ways there are to make it.” The goal was never to create more women who become equally good at participating in systems that burn us out; it was to build better systems that work for us.

Team Toast 🥂

​Tired of tech conferences that are just a bro-flex fests? Good news: The Toast Summit is nothing like that.

​The Toast Summit is made for women in tech, by women in tech. Four years in, we've built a community that's not waiting around for the future of tech to include us, we're shaping it.

​This year's theme, Shaping the Future of Tech, is exactly that: dream bigger, build smarter, and help design what comes next. Because women can’t change the system unless we are in it.

📍Platform Calgary
🗓️ October 1, 2026
⏰ 8:30am - 6:00pm

Early bird pricing ends August 18th, at 11:59pm MST.

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