Women prefer working for male bosses

I now assume women will not be good managers and I have not been disappointed in this assumption.

I don’t hold women to a different standard. Ideally I’d like a boss who highlighted the good works as well as the bad. A boss who made me want to come into work rather than dread it. A boss who realized that telling their staff “well done” is both free and priceless. I don’t expect nurturing, but neither do I want petty personal remarks, relentless nit-picking, and general micro-managing. Bar one, my female bosses have excelled at all of these.

I've worked with some incredible women and men. I'm afraid to say that there is something about a particular kind of bitchyness that I have only experienced between female superiors and their female subordinates - this included personal remarks about attire, make up, looks etc etc. I just don't understand why this occurs so often

it's pretty basic to be asked to challenge your assumptions about the sex/race/age of the person you're working with and test them out to see if your subconsious is playing tricks on you

That works both ways- such as the assumption that a female manager will be more nurturing, more keen to develop staff, more likely to appreciate family issues

Like zaphod posted above, could it be that we hold women to a higher standard?

I think not reducing staff to tears is a reasonable standard to expect of both sexes.

SophoclesTheFox

This comes up in the training on unconscious bias that my company do with hiring managers - it's pretty basic to be asked to challenge your assumptions about the sex/race/age of the person you're working with and test them out to see if your subconsious is playing tricks on you.

Which tallies with jellys links above.

That, despite exhibiting identical behaviour to men, women are still perceived differently.

As we're all about the anecdote on this, here's mine.

By far the worse bosses I've had have been men. By orders of magnitude, as in the kind of "bad boss" that ends up in a grievance procedure and tribunal. None of the women were ever bad like that.
I've had a mix over my career, about half and half men and women and I've good and bad from both. So despite my awful experience with male bosses, I have no preference for the sex of the person I work for, as long as they're a decent human being.

Which make me curious about how people who have bad experience with women bosses write them off so whole heartedly. Like zaphod posted above, could it be that we hold women to a higher standard? This comes up in the training on unconscious bias that my company do with hiring managers - it's pretty basic to be asked to challenge your assumptions about the sex/race/age of the person you're working with and test them out to see if your subconsious is playing tricks on you. You'd be in the minority if it wasn't...

MountainOfMegiddo

Thanks for the advice.

DamsonInDistresss

Of course you have every right to post in whatever section you want.

But when someone says they don’t believe in male violence, yet they ‘identify’ as a feminist, it’s a useful marker for people like me.

Because there are certain viewpoints which, for me, need to be met, for their feminist credibility to be considered.

Frequently, it’s not relevant. In this case, to me, it is.

Do you sit down checking every posters name, checking into their history? and why on earth would you do that, simply because you don’t agree with their experiences or assertions

no I can't be arsed. Just usually threads are mainly regulars who's names I recognise and this one isn't.
Certain topics seem to get new posters on them and its usually to suggest women are somehow to inferior to men, I find it interesting.
Other topics are like tumbleweed.

You do realise this is a public forum and that includes regulars, non regulars and regulars who have name changed?

Yup, I think after 8 years on here I have just about worked that out.

Is the issue not that problems with them can be quite gendered?

When I have fallen out with female bosses, their behaviour has manifested itself as nasty, personal criticism and bitching.

An awful male boss however, just decided to be aggressive as he could get away with that as I was a woman working on my own with him.

Good and bad management practices in the day-to-day of getting work done, don't discriminate in my experience.

I've had male bosses and female bosses, some have been good and some crap. Both the best male boss and the best female boss were very similar in personalities TBH, they very much saw themselves as coordinators of a team rather than superior to a bunch of brainless idiots, like both the worst male and female bosses did.

It could be just my opinion of course as I have never been good with authority

NAMALT etc.

But I've found that male bosses I've had are usually less good at their job, and more likely to take credit for other people's work than the women have been. Men seem to be good bullshitters (IME), but scratch the surface and there is no substance behind it. They are very confident in their opinions though, despite not knowing the subject matter well. I have found the opposite with women.

The best boss I've had is a woman. The worst boss I've had is a man.

I'd prefer to work for women, because I feel the relationship is more honest and based on merit than I have felt it was with male bosses.

With men I feel I have to do a bit more ego-massaging, and I have better things to do.

I prefer to work in an environment where there are no 'bosses'.

The boss = male
The bossy one = female

I've worked with both sexes and have found both equally unbecoming, though thankfully only 2 fulfilled this criteria. I may be lucky.

I knew lots of men who hated the 'boss' I liked because he seemed to favour women - he didn't.

Equally, the only female 'boss' I worked directly for was hated by everyone! She really was awful and desperately wanted to be at home with her children.

I prefer an equal workplace. It seems a lot more balanced and peaceful.

I've been in paid employment for almost 40 years and have had umpteen bosses. There have been some fantastic women and some shit men but on the whole I really don't like having a female boss.

I don't know what it is about the dynamic but I have been badly bullied by a number of female bosses over the years. Plus those I've had have either been micro managers or they ignore me.

Sadly my lovely male boss left last year and I now have a micro-manager. I find I am making loads of mistakes just because of the way she is with me. Each mistake reinforces her view that I'm useless and so it carries on. She told me off for not communicating, having completely ignored me for months. Then she'll go to the other extreme and send me emails every 5 minutes telling me to do what I'm already doing..

This: hbr.org/2017/10/a-study-used-sensors-to-show-that-men-and-women-are-treated-differently-at-work

and this:
www.wsj.com/articles/the-price-women-leaders-pay-for-assertivenessand-how-to-minimize-it-1464660240

may also help explain the survey results.

A little context to that survey:

news.gallup.com/businessjournal/183026/female-bosses-engaging-male-bosses.aspx

Can't seem to find more recent survey results to see if the trend is continuing to narrow since the 2014 survey the OP referenced.

I am a regular poster and, like Quentin, couldn't help noticing that there are a lot of non-regulars on here and wondered why. Sorry if making a simple observation is "arrogant".

You do realise this is a public forum and that includes regulars, non regulars and regulars who have name changed?

Think about it.

I've had good bosses of both sexes.
I have found the dynamic different though. I find I can 'manage up' more with male bosses on average.

I often check posters’ histories. Sometimes people don’t post in good faith. And it’s a means of knowing whether or not you’re wasting your time.

But people name change regularly. Also how many posters have you checked to arrive at your conclusion? That sounds like a very laborious and pointless task because you can’t come to any valid conclusion. Just carry on with the thread if you want to and leave the Hunting down of dodgy posters to the site administrators.

On the whole, and not all bosses are like this etc, I've found that women bosses tend to want me to impress them by doing good work while men bosses mostly want me to butter them up. I get on better with women bosses because I prefer the former dynamic.

I also find women easier to manage because they are far less likely to assume they know better than I do, except on the occasions when they are right

After working for both female and male bosses, I definitely prefer working for a male boss.

Ravingroo, you said that a male boss would pass someone over for promotion if there was family-work balance issues whereas a female boss would give you strategies to cope.

To which I say “Bwark!”

Not in my experience. I’ve worked mostly in government and not for profits the last 20 years and have had almost solely female bosses. Most of them have not had kids and so have seemingly not grasped issues like kids getting sick. The ones who have had kids have regaled me with stories about how they missed their 8 year old’s birthday, or failed to show up for their 12 year old’s award ceremony (in that case the kid had no other family) because “Work comes first.”

Far from giving “strategies to cope” they gave me examples of how they’d short-changed their kids and then said “no” to me prioritizing mine.

I wonder if female bosses are more often difficult for women to work for (I’ve noticed my women bosses are much easier on the men) because to rise to the top requires a more aggressive kind of woman? Due to the patriarchy and all, men assume they are fit for supervisory positions whereas perhaps women with more empathy tend to not be aggressive (intentionally not saying assertive) enough to get promoted.

And I’m not marking them out as bad female bosses in a discriminatory fashion. I’ve had loads of female bosses - one begins to notice a strong trend after the umpteenth bully.

And of course some men do sexually harass female staff/colleagues but I’ve actually never had this happen (just stranger on the street harassment).

There plenty of posters here happy however to say the research is biased or wrong or trying to minimise bad behaviour by women.

Well I’ll ask again. For the people who agree with the survey, why do you think that is?

Do you think people are biased towards women, or do you think they have a point?

It's odd how we're supposed to accept your anecdotes Lass, but you never seem to accept anybody else's views or anecdotes even when backed up with a lot of evidence, isn't it? Do you reckon your experience is valid and everybody else's experience isn't?

I have not dismissed anyone's anecdotes or said they are not valid. Please do not make things up

Actually I have dismissed NoLove's; assertions about how she knows all about this but given she is 17 year school pupil and has had no more than a couple of weeks work experience I think my experience of a law office might be more realistic than hers.

There plenty of posters here happy however to say the research is biased or wrong or trying to minimise bad behaviour by women.