To think women are more toxic than people would like to admit?

[MarthaMayver]

I'd like to start by saying by no means are all women toxic, I'm a female myself and have always been a huge supporter of feminism and "sisterhood" if you will. However the more behaviour I witness from women, I'm starting to stray away from seeing them as allies.

I have worked in female dominated sectors my entire life and have constantly had to witness cliques, gossiping, power plays, passive aggressiveness, and downright bullying. I had to leave my last job as it was affecting my mental health so badly.

I always thought this was just part and parcel of working in groups. However I started a new job last year, with an equal spread of male and female colleagues and there has been none of this. I'm now wondering if the problem with all of my previous workplaces was the fact that they were female dominated.

To me, it's very obvious in person how women favour men over their own gender, regardless of how much "female empowerment" and "Women Supporting Women" is preached these days. For example, they will let men get away with mistakes they wouldn't let other women get away with. Male incompetence is often seen as "cute", whereas the same behaviour coming from a woman would be laughed or sneered at.

There are so many stories coming out in recent years of mothers favouring their sons over their daughters, and at worst bullying and abusing their daughters whilst worshiping their sons. I now think back to my own childhood and I can remember many occasions where my mother would put me down for something, while supporting my male siblings for doing the same thing. There were also a lot of sly, underhand insults that I didn't realize at the time, that were never directed towards my brothers.

I'm prepared to be told IBU, but I'm also very interested in knowing how many people agree, or if anyone has any similar experiences.

My experience is that women all together can indeed be catty, but men all together can be oafish and crude - both are unprofessional and not much fun if you're their to work.

IME a mixed gender, diverse workplace is always the most productive and achieved more.

Hmm.

you lost me when you put sisterhood in quotes to be honest.

Theres 10 pages on this thread and the only
thing I’d like to add is that as a PP said upthread, the vast majority of violent crimes against women, child and men are committed by men. Rape and murder too, domestic violence the same. Men control the wealth and political power, men are the rule makers. Women are underrepresented in every way that matters - policing, politics, corporate executives, elite sports - and so on and so on.

So you can argue that working with men is soooo much nicer and easier all you like. Then you can look at the statistics and realise probably a good chunk of those men have been a perpetrator and or a passive witness of sexist, misogynistic or even criminal behaviour towards a woman.
You can also look at the pack mentality of men versus women and the outcomes of them.

I know which group I’d choose every single time.

Not all men are violent, evil or abusive of course not - but the vast majority of violent, evil, abusive people are men.

Honestly I think that women have just the same capacity for being awful people as men - no more, no less.
In terms of work places, I think it is more that like attracts like. so if you work in a place that is very cliquey then people who like that are more likely to stick around while people who don't fit in end up leaving. And generally places that are less diverse demographically (e.g. dominated by one gender) are more prone to becoming like this.
I work in a fairly female dominated industry, and have found the culture to be quite different in different jobs. in one, I was subject to awful workplace bullying by a woman, but she didn't just bully other women. she seemed to latch onto a "victim" for a period of time (often until they left) and then move onto the next. in other jobs, I had great working relationships with the vast majority of people there - some male and a lot of female.

The types of bullying I’d add are predominantly female methods of bullying. This would tackle the ones bullying but getting away with it because it’s not considered to be “serious” bullying even though it does lead to adverse life impacts for its victims. Incidentally “serious” bullying comprises of predominantly male methods of bullying, also prioritising male victims over female victims.

I am interested in how women relate to each other and identifying any patterns. We all know that women are involved in all sorts of abusive situations - from circumcision to child marriage. We know there is a whole 'beauty' industry staffed largely by women that encourages insecurity and mental health issues. We know that women gave orders to beat slaves and that women expected other women to give their seat up on the bus for them. Not to derail the thread further, but women are not always kind to each other and I would be curious to know why

I can't believe you aren't putting 2 and 2 together here.

I am interested in how women relate to each other and identifying any patterns. We all know that women are involved in all sorts of abusive situations - from circumcision to child marriage

There's culture's value men over women and women are 2nd class citizens, there to please , serve and pleasure men

We know there is a whole 'beauty' industry staffed largely by women that encourages insecurity and mental health issues

Here to serve the male gaze and just to please men and heaven forbid you fall outside of men's perceived image of beauty.

We know that women gave orders to beat slaves and that women expected other women to give their seat up on the bus for them

At that time, they were expected to carry out their roles according to what men expected of them.

Are you really not seeing a pattern here 🤯

Women bullying women start young, there’s a thread on here right now where an 8yr old girl just posted this note to a 4yr old girl

@Discovereads well done for following the links, yes I agree it’s hardly a definitive study, it was intended as an example of the kind of research you find on this topic. Typically, the evidence does suggest that, in general, bullying behaviour is at least as likely and probably more likely among men. This may be simply to do with likelihood of seniority, but it’s still important and in-line with what you would expect given male aggression behaviour in other domains.

As for your gem, with respect, it think you may have over polished it somewhat. I’ve put in bold the gem you quoted, the rest is what I think is pretty important context :
““Though bullies where less likely to be women than men (31% vs. 69%), women bullies were less “equitable” when choosing their targets for bullying. Women bullied women in 68% of cases. “

So in all cases in this study men were far more likely to be the bullies (69%) the target of male bullies were 57% female, and 43% male. Women were still far less likely to be the bully.

In the 31% of cases where the bully was female, the target was female 68% of the time, and male 32% of the time. So women are most likely to be targeted by both male and female bullies, female bullies target 10% more women than there male counterparts, but men in this study are still disproportionately targeting women too.

As for the parameters of the type of bullying included, I’m not sure what your point is. Surely it makes sense to include those behaviours which can be most unambiguously defined as bullying? Otherwise you risk including behaviour which though unpleasant isn’t considered to be as harmful. It doesn’t provide an exhaustive inventory of bad behaviour but few studies are going to, as it would soon become impossible to pick up a signal in the noise.

Yes, true, I shared a single article regarding the impact of male abuse of women on suicide among women, not the highest level of evidence but I didn’t have time to do a full literature review sadly.
However it’s a relatively well written and researched article with links to original reports and studies with relevant facts such as “In 2004, data from Prof Sylvia Walby estimated that one in eight of all female suicides and suicide attempts in the UK are due to domestic violence and abuse.”
Given that an article regarding Pritti Patel and bullying is about a single case I really don’t think the two are directly comparable, but arguably an article bringing together a range of cases and data from within and beyond the UK should carry more weight?

Now, I’ve provided examples of evidence which supports my perspective, it’s flawed, it’s undoubtedly incomplete, I’m aware of other research on this but haven’t the time to search it out. I still don’t think I seen any from you which tells me why you believe what you believe? I’m not saying that because a reason for suicide among women is DA that no other reason can exist- I’m asking you on what basis have you decided that this, women being toxic bullies in the workplace, is a serious contributing factor?
You may well be right, I’ve just yet to be convinced based on what you and others have shared here so far. Links welcome

Thank you BrokeAsABone, i've met all sort of women, some I like, some I don't. Only once have I ever truly feared a woman - she was a very disturbed teenager and I was vulnerable. Men on the other hand have frequently treated me as less than human, sometimes through disdain, other times as an amusement - but often not fully human. Never had that with a woman - complex as we are.

Criminals are the problem, not men.

Here are some studies from the last time this was discussed on here.

Testosterone, crime, and prison behavior were examined among 692 adult male prison inmates. Inmates who had committed personal crimes of sex and violence had higher testosterone levels than inmates who had committed property crimes of burglary, theft, and drugs.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/019188699400177T

Data analyses revealed that, compared with placebo, testosterone increased reactivity of the amygdala, hypothalamus and periaqueductal grey when viewing angry facial expressions.

We were able to show for the first time that increasing levels of testosterone within the normal physiological range can have a profound effect on brain circuits that are involved in threat-processing and human aggression," said Carré, Assistant Professor at Nipissing University.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140811124630.htm

This is consistent with other studies, which show that among men known for their aggressive behavior, testosterone has a clear effect in provoking hostility and violence, an effect that has also been documented in women.

www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2019/01/16/the-scientific-reasons-why-men-are-more-violent-than-women/amp/

Atavistic residues of aggressive behavior prevailing in animal life, determined by testosterone, remain attenuated in man and suppressed through familial and social inhibitions.

Testosterone plays a significant role in the arousal of these behavioral manifestations in the brain centers involved in aggression and on the development of the muscular system that enables their realization. There is evidence that testosterone levels are higher in individuals with aggressive behavior, such as prisoners who have committed violent crimes.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/#:~:text=There%20is%20evidence%20that%20testosterone,aggressive%20phases%20of%20sports%20games.

This study found that inmates with higher testosterone concentrations had more often been convicted of violent crimes. The relationship was most striking at the extremes of the testosterone distribution, where 9 out of 11 inmates with the lowest testosterone concentrations had committed nonviolent crimes, and 10 out of 11 inmates with the highest testosterone concentrations had committed violent crimes.

www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/saliva-testosterone-and-criminal-violence-young-adult-prison

In a wide range of vertebrate species, there is a clear relationship between a male’s aggressiveness and his circulating levels of androgens such as testosterone, a hormone produced in the testes.

www.britannica.com/science/aggressive-behaviour/The-influence-of-testosterone

Testosterone shows the same small, positive relationship with aggression in women as in men. The role of cortisol is unclear, although some evidence suggests that women who are high in testosterone and low in cortisol show heightened aggression.

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00081/full

Hormones are also important in creating aggression. Most important in this regard is the male sex hormone testosterone, which is associated with increased aggression in both animals and in humans. Research conducted on a variety of animals has found a strong correlation between levels of testosterone and aggression. This relationship seems to be weaker among humans than among animals, yet it is still significant.

opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/chapter/the-biological-and-emotional-causes-of-aggression/

In men, high levels of endogenous testosterone (T) seem to encourage behavior apparently intended to dominate to enhance one's status over other people. Sometimes dominant behavior is aggressive, its apparent intent being to inflict harm on another person. Measurement of T at a single point in time, presumably indicative of a man's basal T level, predicts many of these dominant or antisocial behaviors."

web-archive.southampton.ac.uk/cogprints.org/663/1/bbs_mazur.html

Prior studies have found higher levels of testosterone among persons who commit violent crimes than among those who commit nonviolent crimes. The present study examined data from 230 male prison inmates to determine how testosterone levels might relate specifically to the way in which inmates committed their crimes. Characteristics of inmate behavior associated with murder, manslaughter, robbery, assault, rape, and child molestation were scored from parole board investigative reports, and inmate testosterone levels were assayed from saliva samples. Among inmates who committed homicide, those high in testosterone more often knew their victims and planned their crimes ahead of time.

www.researchgate.net/publication/223531794_Testosterone_and_ruthless_homicide

Despite what pp have claimed, I don’t believe it is serious- I believe that it may be serious/should be taken seriously and based on the evidence we have warrants further study.

Please note the “study” you linked for workplace bullying was actually a survey and so the methodology and accuracy requirements are much looser and lower than for an actual peer reviewed study. There is also less gender equality in the US than the U.K. so I would be interested to see if the gender gap of bullies changes or not between different countries.

An interesting read if you have the time. Descends into a total shitshow of sniping and kind of proves the point being discussed. 😂

Women prefer working for male bosses

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3080265-Women-prefer-working-for-male-bosses

@YesJess an estimated 1 in 3 women globally will experience physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner between the ages of 15 and 49. That’s presumably lot of male criminals, no? At what level of male participation would you start to see this as a male issue rather than simply a criminal issue?

You see it even in high school, with (some) girls fawning over the boys. They can be much less forgiving of their female peers!

Are you suggesting men made/forced women do all these things? I think it is more complicated than that.

“In 2004, data from Prof Sylvia Walby estimated that one in eight of all female suicides and suicide attempts in the UK are due to domestic violence and abuse.”

I’ve read her paper that was helpfully linked in the above quote in the article and where this estimate is calculated (p56) and it’s pretty rough tbh. She rightfully concludes cautiously with lots of caveats:
“This implies that probably nearly 13% of female suicides and suicide attempts may be attributed to domestic violence.”

So basically 37% of 34% is how she arrived at 13%

The 34% is from a 2002 U.K. study that concluded that 34% of women who had ever attempted suicide in their life had experienced violence in the home (at some point in their life)

The 37% is from a 1995 study that found 37% of women attending hospital for domestic violence injuries attempted suicide on the same day.

But anyway, the reason she words her 13% calculation so cautiously is because of a few reasons, the primary ones being:

The 34% of women who have attempted suicide who have experienced violence in the home (at some point in their lives) answered a survey question that didn’t record when their suicide attempt was, or when this violence in the home experience was, so there is no way to know if they occurred concurrently.

It also doesn’t record whether they were victim or witness or even the sex or number of the perpetrator(s). So this figure will include women who experienced violence in the home in the past, perhaps even as children. It’s also known that mothers and siblings are perpetrators of domestic violence on children, not so often as fathers but it’s by no means a rarity either. So a measure of “violence in the home” on a lifetime basis increases the % likelihood of female perpetrators.

So to apply the 37% figure, she had to assume that all of the 34% of all female attempted suicides were women experiencing violence in the home NOW as adults, as in their present current situation when the data is actually ambiguous.

So really the 13% figure is very tenuous as it’s highly unlikely all women who have experienced violence in the home at some point in their life will be experiencing it during the time of their suicide attempt(s). She’s also been very careful to say “domestic violence” and “violence in the home” in general terms without trying to estimate the gender proportion of the perpetrators…so she’s not even hinted at female suicides increasing due to male aggression.

There are also issues with plucking findings from different studies so many years apart (1995, 2002) and concerning different populations, sample sizes and so on. She then references #s suicides in 2000 (yet another year) where there were 1,497 female suicides. As every suicide has an inquest, I do wonder why she did not spend her time paging through the coroners reports rather than plucking numbers from very different studies to cobble together a rough estimate.

She also bluntly states she is “assuming” the 34% and 37% that applied to suicide attempts also applied to completed suicides. Which is a bit of a sloppy leap. A much stronger case would have been made if she could have said a systematic review of the inquests into 1,497 suicides found that x% of women had been in abusive relationships at the time of their death.

Anyway, I think we can agree it’s important to look into any/all reasons why women attempt suicide and then try and prevent suicide.

Aside from the homicide stats (primarily men but a tiny proportion) most studies over the past 25 years show statistics for partner violence to be pretty close between the sexes. Was a few big threads in past year with loads of studies that surprised me.

But girls (cis-girls, trans-girls, and any other identifying girls included), can we say that our Lionesses who won in football are great showing that females can work as a team and just get on with what they got to do.

Also not forgetting, most importantly, violence against women is wrong. I guess most of you are talking about this. I don't know how we went from women being toxic to discussing serious matters of violence which is another story altogether and deserves another thread.

Women can absolutely fall prey to very toxic social landscapes. And it's not caused by "the patriarchy" any more than male violence is caused by women. Social activity is how women tend to create and enforce social hierarchies, using language and inclusion/exclusion dynamics to assert dominance. That can be in part about access to male time and attention, but women who compete for those things are making a choice just like anyone else.

You only have to look at the behaviour of nuns of all people in the running of the Magdalen Laundries in Ireland to see how utterly vile and callous women can be towards other women.

Women can be the most avid supporters of the patriarchy - it wouldn’t have lasted so long otherwise. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, they say… So why the patriarchy, if it is of no benefit to any women at all, ever?

Are you suggesting men made/forced women do all these things? I think it is more complicated than that

In a roundabout way, yes.

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence on here from women hating women bosses and women loving women bosses.

I just think, if you're a twat in the workplace, you're a twat in the workplace regardless of your sex.

The other issues discussed are completely different matters. Is my current female boss a twat, yes she is.

Do I think she would support FGM, child marriage, beat slaves, no I don't.

I think female behaviours that need to be employed in order to survive within a patriarchy can be and are also employed by some in order to thrive, and can be and also are employed by others just because they are unpleasant, manipulative people who enjoy manipulating others and being unkind. Male and female bosses can be equally good or equally unpleasant - it depends whether they made it to their current position through genuine merit or through using their more unpleasant characteristics to work their way up through the organisation. The question is, are women intrinsically more egalitarian, kind and accepting of differences than men? Is there evidence for that?

@Walkaround
I agree actually. Why did women across all cultures allow men to form patriarchies all over the world if they didn't enjoy it or agree with it?
It's not like they were silent mutes up until the first wave feminism movement.
I bet no one will be able to answer us.