Elissa Freiha, founder, Womena, a female-focused media company that aims to break stereotypes about women from the Middle East, has urged the creative community to help solve the problem of the world operating as a patriarchal culture.

“Creatives are the most precious resources we have, and we need to protect and foster them. They can come up with the right solutions to fix everything else or shed light on problems in society in a way that can emotionally connect with others,” said Freiha in conversation with Manifest in the June issue.

Freiha has been slamming the usage of words like ‘boss lady’ and ‘girl boss’.

“The English language is such that one needs to add these terms. French and, funnily enough, Arabic too, are gendered languages, so one needs to specify gender for the likes of doctors. In English, one needs to put effort into showing that the role one is talking about is not a man, because there is an underlying assumption that if I say ‘boss,’ one means a man. So people end up adding the word lady. But no one says ‘Boss Gentleman’ or ‘Boss Boy’. I’m often called a ‘Boss Girl’. I’m a 36-year-old grown woman, not a girl. By the same connotation, does that make Elon Musk a ‘Boy Boss’? I think so,” she stated.

Read our full chat with Freiha in the June issue of Manifest, which can be bought here.

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