To hate working with women

[HousethatChunkbuilt]

I am a feminist and I think women are incredible. I am proud at all we achieve, having babies, periods, going through the menopause, the constant harassment, fear of violence, discrimination, sexism... the list goes on.
HOWEVER I find it incredibly difficult to work in all female teams. I have nearly always worked in all female environments in entry level jobs.
The bitchiness is unreal. Everyday comments lead to tears, meltdowns, refusal to come in. This has happened in every single workplace. The only place I haven't had this is in a shop where it was mostly men and other (quite mature) women. Oh and one place where we were all different nationalities, is cattiness a British thing?
It just takes so much time and effort navigating the various rifts, arguments, feuds and rivalries. I honestly think we'd rule the world if we could get rid of this shit.
I'm quite matter of fact and get frustrated that this taking up so much time!

I am proud at all we achieve, having babies, periods, going through the menopause, the constant harassment, fear of violence, discrimination, sexism... the list goes on.

😐

Having periods isn't an achievement op

Also I disagree. I've worked with many bitchy gossipy men in fact they are the worst I hear for bitching behind people's backs and making vile catty remarks especially about women. Whereas my all female environments are relaxed and supportive.

My colleagues are mostly men. There's loads of two faced behaviour, questionable nicknames, gossiping, attendance issues, emotional outbursts etc. from the men.

@MrsLarry

Are you by any chance one of those women who "gets on better with men"?

No, she also dislikes men. Just generally not a fan of the human race.

Sounds like teenagers at school more than anything. However,. School mums environment could be very bitchy and competitive too. It is like back to school with the bullies and the tantrums. I have never worked in only women environments so would not know but sounds like hell.

I work in a currently exclusively female team. There is a large range of ages and they range from entry level to highly qualified proffesionals. Everyone is lovely and supportive and there is absolutely no bitchiness.
I previously worked in another industry that was predominantly women and gay men and have witnessed some horrible catiness and bullying. Saying that however, dh works in a very masculine, male dominated industry and there is lots of jealously, backstabbing and rumour making so not convinced it is anything to do with sex.

We need to acknowledge that some women will not say anything bad about women. Like we are all wonderful. So ridiculous!

I haven't rtft but just want to say, I don't know the science behind a good female office, but every new bitchy female has been reprogrammed in my office with an amazing culture. We are all in sync , is it like that thing when menstral cycles inadvertently sync up? I don't know but each new woman, within a few months becomes supportive and lovely like as if by magic. My personal life is a complete shit show but every morning I wake up and thank god I don't have to deal with Female professional conflict on top of everything else in my life

@fournonblondes

We need to acknowledge that some women will not say anything bad about women. Like we are all wonderful. So ridiculous!

There’s a difference between me saying “the women I work with are awful” (because honestly they mostly are) and “the women I work with are awful because they’re women” (they’re not, they’d be awful if they were men too).

We can criticise individual women without criticising the entire sex.

@fournonblondes

We need to acknowledge that some women will not say anything bad about women. Like we are all wonderful. So ridiculous!

But in this case it just doesn’t make much sense. OP has come on to state how awful working with women is because of their general bitchiness, and then has revealed she doesn’t like working with men either.

If you don’t like working with anyone, then it realistically can’t be everyone else that’s wrong.

What a strange post.

My current team is mainly women and they are professional, caring, funny and support each other.

I have worked with mixed team, male dominated teams and female dominated teams and I found that bitchy/unpleasant behaviour has nothing to do with gender, it all depends on the individual.

Also some companies have poor work environments and managers and that leads to higher levels of stress/employee dissatisfaction and that does affect staff behaviour, so you might have had a run of bad luck and ended up working for bad employers and in an industry with poor working practices.

If you keep having the same problem, you have to look at the common denominator in this, which just happens to be you...either you need to move to a different field of work or you need to look out how you interact with people.

I'd say I've found the same in about 60% of female dominated places Ive worked. I'm always pleasantly surprised when it isnt, put it that way. It's a cliqueyness I think. If you're exactly like them, you're fine.

I’ve worked in all female teams and I’ve worked in all male (plus me!) teams.

IME the all female teams were far more considerate of each other, communicated much better and what others might describe as bitchy (because society tells us to be uncomfortable with vocal women) were actually not being nasty, just assertive (as they’d call the men). If your child was sick and you needed to go pick them up, it was fine and they’d ask the next day how the little one is.

The all-male teams were nasty, reeked of misogyny and we’re full of men taking credit for my work. If my child was sick and needed to be picked up my boss went through about a million scenarios as to what to do, none of which were ‘go pick them up’.

I've worked in male and female dominated industries. Not so much in really mixed ones, weirdly.

While both can be healthy or unhealthy, when it gets bad, in my experience, it can look somewhat different. Usually the badness is caused by a leadership failure, though sometimes it's due to one or more toxic personalities.

I am wondering if this is industry specific. I work with all women (but I chose them for my team) and they are awesome. There's never been problems with bitchiness or drama.

It might also be a problem with the culture. The management sets the tone and then others follow suit.

I feel the same. Although I wish I didnt. I work part-time now and not based in same office of the company, I move around. Thank God.

Always had problems of the sort you mention, in all-women teams. Memorable occasion in 1 job, manager had a melt-down and screamed at me. Embarassed herself in front of everybody all because she thought a colleague fancied me - he didnt, we'd been mates for many years but she fancied him so made my life a misery.

When she shouted she had spit flying, looking deranged. I will never forget it.

Current role we have someone who's suffered mental health problems for years. Some of the women talk about him in scornful fashion all the time. He overheard them recently, went off and burst into tears. Havent seen him since and am toying with the idea of reporting them. Horrible, unkind people.

Of course its not all women but I can't be bothered with the angst so Im happy to keep away from it all.

No way are men any better though their crap is just different. Its not a British thing either. Its a being a bitch thing and women like that I find disappointing.

@Chocaholic9

It might also be a problem with the culture. The management sets the tone and then others follow suit.

This. I have experienced dreadful bullying and toxic behaviour from women in two workplaces. Both had terrible management, failure to address issues etc. Bad behaviour not dealt with from the top down.

Nurse here. Predominantly female but with a good number of men too. The guys tend to not join in with the bitchiness although they do like a bit of gossip. Most of the female nurses are lovely but there is a largish clique which is fairly catty and judgemental. Most of it done behind the back of those concerned. Apparently we are a 'work family' but tends to apply to only a certain chosen few If you are somewhat different as in quiet, bookish etc the female nurses are less inclusive, the guys don't give a toss.
What I have noticed is that some nurses are quite unprofessional whereas I've never witnessed medics publicly moaning about colleagues although presumably it does go on.
I guess it's all about the culture of the workplace and the personality of your management. In my case my ex female ward manager engaged in it herself but I also had an nasty male one who was extremely ambitious.

My workplace currently has far more women than men (I've been there 12 years) and I agree. I get on with all my colleagues but everyone slags each other off constantly.

@LobsterNapkin

I've worked in male and female dominated industries. Not so much in really mixed ones, weirdly.

While both can be healthy or unhealthy, when it gets bad, in my experience, it can look somewhat different. Usually the badness is caused by a leadership failure, though sometimes it's due to one or more toxic personalities.

I think this pretty much nails it.

I had a job (gastro pub) where the chef, supported by other male staff, made low level sexual bullying/harassment type comments to young female staff. Not enough to really complain and if you did, management didn’t do anything as chefs were harder to find than waiting staff.

Based on this experience, do I only seek to work for/with women and claim that all men are like this? So why is it ok to make sweeping generalisations about a whole group of people based on the behaviour of some individuals (often because they have got away with being this way without being challenged or due to poor management). Propagating these ideas that women are some sort of problem in the workplace (whether it’s that women bitch/gossip, distract the men, are only filling the time until they can go on maternity leave etc etc) only sets us back, when women often have to be twice as good to get the same recognition as a man or are accused of ‘aggression’ where a man would be merely ‘assertive’. Just look what Boris has got away with compared to how the party treated Theresa May. It often seems that men have assumed capability just by turning up while women always have something to prove.

You mean that's all you could think of

@WorraLiberty, do you go to threads to dismiss people? This is not the first time.

@HousethatChunkbuilt

I have experienced cattiness from female coworkers too. Maybe it was specific to my industry but I found them to be insecure, competitive, lots of gossiping behind the back. But we were very young and I got a lot of male attention.
On the other hand, I experienced sexual harassment in workplace by men. Mostly older men.
I am much older now, not so naive, not so attractive and most importantly keep my guards up.

I don’t agree with you on that British women are cattier than Eastern European’s.
I am originally from Asia, and in my experience there was a lot of cattiness in work environment. I also had a friend from one of Eastern European countries, and she used to gossip a lot. So not sure it has anything to do with ethnicity. I think it’s years of female oppression in our society that puts pressure on females to be competitive.

I am curious to know which industries have such caring teams? Must be outside corporate environment.

@MrsLarry

Are you by any chance one of those women who "gets on better with men"?

Why is it a problem for some women to get on better with men?

There are enough threads on here about cattiness amongst school mums. Lets not pretend that groups of women are always kind and inclusive. They are not. I now work in a very supportive mixed team, but I've worked with and for some arseholes, too.

Not my experience. One of the things I loved about my last job was how the younger women would hang out socially with the middle-aged women. It felt so positive and empowering to have these friendships with women of all ages.