Bring me a Bitchy Boss.

So, here's the thing: I'm on the cusp of beginning my "real" career. I graduate in a mere 6 months (whoa), and am looking for gainful employment. In general, my standards are pretty broad, but one of the things I actively want? An intellectual lady with brass stones and rapier wit for a boss. What may commonly be known as A Bitch.

I'm not being cute. For young women, there's a dearth of available professional mentors out there. Say what you like about post-feminism in the workplace, or the disintegrating old boy's network, female lawyers still face a stubbornly sexist field. We make $66k less than our male counterparts on an annual basis, despite similar debts and qualifications. Last week, the Paycheck Fairness Act failed in the Senate, so I can be assured this wage gap persists. Facing these facts, there's nothing outrageous about wanting a female face to help me navigate the unfriendly fire of sexism's two perennial chick stereotypes: The Bitch and The Ditz.

And I'm not being naive. Believe me, I've worked for some hellraisers. My first boss crushed my self-esteem and soul into barely recognizable flecks of fingernail dirt. Her fiercest weapon was her voice, and she used it to taunt, lecture, remind, and demand.

Speak to most burgeoning female professionals, and you'll be hard pressed to find one who hasn't experienced frustration or inexplicable rage. If Betty Friedan captured the impotent anger of housewives, there's a seething mass of young women in the workplace similarly striving to describe their "problem with no voice." I suspect our frustration similarly stems from the quiet insistence there's nothing wrong. The reality and the messaging don't compute: It's the Year of the Woman, but the number of female Congressional representatives backslid for the first time in 3 decades this November. There's no need for the Paycheck Fairness Act, but tell that to Lilly Ledbetter. It's a post-feminist society, but ... can you file my paperwork?

Hellraiser Boss was a lot of things. She never helped me get ahead and paid me sub-par wages. But most of all, she was direct. She came to me - rageful, typo'ed and spit-flying - when I was wrong. Amidst her paper-throwing screaming fits, there was an underlying message: You are tough enough to take this. And if you aren't, I don't care - you will be soon.

The thing about tough love is that it presumes an individual's inherent capability. Hellraiser was a Heavyweight, and if she was picking a fight with me, that meant I was one too. After every match, I boiled over with fierce hatred, envisioning ways for Hellraiser to reap her sour karma. But, then came the eventual resolve: Kiki, you can do this, so pick up your boxing mitts and get to work. And I did. I was, afterall, a Heavyweight, right?

By comparison, every post-Hellraiser boss has been a man that's treated me with affable kid gloves. There's nothing wrong with kid gloves, you know. Kids play nice, they laugh, they get ice cream and pizza. But where's the push in that? Kids are also incapable wrecks who cry and wet themselves. After too long, I missed the weird inverse affirmation that came from Bitchy Boss. Why's everybody being so ... docile around me? Why is no one challenging me? Why isn't anyone letting me to do something besides Schedule Their Appointments? ... Oh my god, do they not think I'm capable? Don't they know I'm a HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION?!

One of the biggest professional labors is reminding bosses that Girls are MORE than just Good Administrative Staffers. In this long, constant, needling struggle, it's impossible to not stare longingly at the corner office and wish for a female mentor to capably oscillate between kindness and grit. For a Lady Boss to toss you an assignment, tell you it needs fixing without any type of wink or sly affirmation, and gruffly remind Sam Wonder to clear the dishes in the office kitchen.

And that's all I want: Tough love doled out to me by some savvy brunette broad with a blackberry. Not forever, but just for right now.

I'm tough enough to take it.

And if not, I will be. I'm a Heavyweight.


Currently Listening: Florence and the Machine, "Howl"