“If You’re Anti-Girlboss, You’re Misogynistic”: Flex Mami Defends Hustle Culture

Never has there been more discourse about work than there is in 2023. Perhaps it’s because it is estimated that we’ll spend a third of our life at work or the fact we’ve been branded as the anti-work generation, where despite everyone having the same 24 hours in the day as Beyoncé, nobody wants to work these days. 

We’re girlbosses but we’re also quiet quitting (and loud quitting). We’re getting the bag; we’re girl rotting, hustling, grinding and great resignation-ing. It’s hard to imagine that Gen X ever had conversations like this ad nauseam when they were in their 20s, which was in a time when the relentless work discourse on TikTok simply didn’t exist yet. 

Our obsession with individualism seems to be at the root of our distinct attitudinal and generational shift, and a recent study confirms this, finding that 44% of Gen Z believe it is important to be very successful and have people recognise their achievements. This is compared with 37% of millennials, who lived through the first girlboss era.

It makes sense that one of the most popular career aspirations for teens and young adults today is to be an influencer, with 56% of females aged between 15-25 saying they would leave their career or education to become one — a significant jump from 39% of millennial women. We don’t want to work for a conglomerate with a cool name any more, only to be unrecognised and under-accomplished. We want to be championed on our own merit, to be celebrated under our own name. Our public self-branding of our own ideals via our social media seems to mean that we are no longer a person who works a job. We are the job, or at least, we become it as it feels more impossible by the day to separate who you are from what you do.

The same study found that Gen Z stood out as valuing power, achievement, hedonism and stimulation more than any other generation before it, and despite this, hustle culture seems to be demonised, with “girlbossing” branded as cringe. There’s an expectation that you just sort of arrive at a place, without breaking a visible sweat — which is not dissimilar to the perfectly toned bodies on Instagram that never seem to have left the beach for a Barry’s class. When speaking with Refinery29 Australia, Flex Mami makes the point: “If you're anti-girlboss, you’re misogynistic. Because we're not anti-bosses yet”.

The multi-hyphenate makes the important point that the starting line for the race to success is not in the same place for everyone. “I feel like it's because when you live in a politicised body — a Black body, a fat body, whatever — you don't get to be so in control of how people perceive you,” Mami says. “ It's almost like climbing uphill a little bit. It doesn't help for me to put on a more palatable archetype because I can't change society's perception of Blackness or whatever it might be. So I just have to go hard with just how I am. And if it works, it works.”

And so, Flex hustles. In fact, she recently partnered with Chivas Regal for their latest campaign called “I Rise, We Rise”, with the goal of challenging the perceptions of what success looks when you employ a hustle-led ambition and are unapologetic about your drive to succeed. Her ethos is much more galvanising than the “get off your fucking ass and work” valley girl drawl.

“You, with your own resources, skills, strengths, [and] weaknesses can get stuff done because you want to, and there's not much else in the world that can inspire you in the same way,” says Mami. She adds that what she likes most about hustle culture is the sense of agency you get to hold onto, and that your own individualism that makes you special is what also makes you interesting. “Generally, we're waiting for the leader, the teacher, the lucky break, the opportunity to reveal itself and, it's like, it will, but in case it doesn't, isn't it cool that you have yourself to fall back on?”

The fact of the matter is, in 2023, it appears that to be successful, one has to either be a hustler or a nepo baby. Personally, I know what I’d rather and Flex does too. She tells me she’s sick of the nepo baby slander, because “you’d do it too for a cheque”. Personally, the tartan and Miu Miu ballet flats would be enough for me. 

Until one of my parents stars in a Hollywood blockbuster, I guess it’s down to me.