She Wants to Kill the Girl Boss

Ashley Sumner, the C.E.O. of Quilt, announced she was striking gender from her bio. The LinkedIn crowd went wild.Ashley Sumner, the chief executive of Quilt.Credit…Alec KuglerMarch 24, 2021, 11:47 a.m. ETIn a start-up economy of self-described “boss babes,” Ashley Sumner wants to be known in simpler terms.While on a run near her home in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles in early March, Ms. Sumner was thinking about identity and the peppy phrases that female professionals use to describe themselves online: “girl bosses” and the like.“I worry about the negative impact of that,” Ms. Sumner, 32, said. “I worry that it allows investors to see founders who are women as a separate class from the rest of the founders. I worry it allows investors to write women founders smaller checks. I do believe that women need to help inspire other women but also that identity can be used as labels to separate us.”Ms. Sumner is the chief executive officer of Quilt, an audio platform for conversations about self-care topics like wellness in the workplace, PTSD and astrology. (In prepandemic days, the company organized work gatherings and group discussions in people’s homes.)She has felt marginalized in the woman section of founders’…
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