Female competition?

Where does it say it comes from jealousy? I don't think that is true at all and I would ignore any sources that say it does. People bully for all sorts of reasons- men and women. Anyway, we won't be able to magically work out what she would be jealous of. The point is that she is behaving in an unacceptable way and you need to do something about it. That will involve going to HR/ her line manager.

Line manager.

Why do you not want to go through your line manager, OP?

I know you are not her manager- you have clarified this. Does she have What obstacle is in the way of you raising this officially with her manager or HR?

You have had loads of advice. This largely consists of go to your line manager and/or confront the person in question.

I have no idea why she is behaving like this and nor does anybody else. Some people behave badly at work. That is why there is a disciplinary process. Surely you know this. Is there a reason why you do not want to follow the appropriate channels.

“Why is she picking on me and being super friendly with all the males? What is going on?”
Who knows?

Why aren’t you discussing it with your line manager?

Why is she picking on me and being super friendly with all the males? What is going on?

How on earth would we know? Maybe she is a misogynistic little cow. In order to find out you must follow proper workplace procedures and raise the issue with your line manager, outlining specific examples of her behaviour.

How did you get to be 45 without dealing with a few workplace conflicts?
If she's screaming your work is a joke at you, that's highly unprofessional, and as her manager you should be making that clear.
Or if you're not the manager, you should be telling her manager.
Is there no feedback process to relate her performance to others?
Someone shouting abuse at another staff member is grounds for HR to be involved.
This is nothing to do with her, or you, being a woman.
Do you struggle to deal with people in other areas of life?

Training on how to support graduates? It seems that you struggle with this because of a lack of assertiveness and failing to nip some quite extreme behaviour by a subordinate in the bud. I would say training would be beneficial here.

I still struggle to understand how instead of having a word with said graduate and telling the boss, you start talking about how this must be typical of all women, must be due to jealousy and start thinking of things she might be jealous of (and concluding that the only things she could possibly be jealous of must be money or looks). If you have worked in this industry for such a long time, you must be used to supporting and guiding more junior staff members. I know junior people are capable of bullying older people, but I do struggle with the approach you are taking and your assumption that this is a feminist issue because all women are like this.

No, envy is not the sole reason for bullying by the way. And having a clash with one female colleague is not a reason for writing off the behaviour as ‘how all women act’ and posting about it on a feminist board. How is it a feminist issue?

How have you survived 20 years in the workplace. No, you don’t say stop bullying me, you calmly say ‘the way you are speaking to me is completely inappropriate and I will report it to the line manager if it happens again. I am willing to sit down and discuss the report with you and answer any questions, but the way you have just behaved is no way to speak to a colleague’. You then write up a report of the incident and email your line manager with the recommendation that maybe she needs some training on professional behaviour.

I think you also sound in dire need of some training on how to manage a team.

I'm not sure this belongs on the Feminist board.

Having said that, yelling at someone that their work is a joke is bang out of order. It is bullying whether it's from someone junior, senior or on the same level. I would withdraw from working with her if you can. No doubt she'll be bullying whoever gets stuck with her next.

I also work in a male-dominated industry and for most of my working life have been the only woman on whatever team I happened to join. Just recently we recruited quite a few women, mostly younger than me. There have been no problems.

And to be talking about relationships with boys at school and having once been beautiful and all that stuff. OP. Organise a meeting with her and your director or whoever is her line manager and your line manager and sort out some proper working guidelines. She needs to understand what is appropriate workplace behaviour.

Also someone who thinks this is weird. It sounds like there is a huge problem with boundaries here but why label it ‘female behaviour’? This is one person- not all women. It seems odd for someone with 20 years experience to have one difficult workplace relationship and immediately ask ‘are all women like this?’.

I think I understand with the mentor thing

You were asked by your employer to be a workplace mentor, help her settle. And teach her the job by going through your projects.

The work you do is engineering based?

So you kindly offered to be the named mentor for her chartered status? Which is different to workplace mentoring and is indeed huge. Lack of a mentor for my most recent application is what has held me back. They are SO hard to find. Especially one in the actual place you are working, doing the same job, so can direct you to the stuff that really counts towards the application. Mentors are a personal thing, so I get that she might make a seemingly random decision about that. In th past i have chosen a less well qualified person that I just got on better with. No disrespect to the others person, I just felt I could have a more productive working relationship with one rather than the other.

She sounds odd. I’d back right off.