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.

@Pumperthepumper sorry, what are you pointing out in that post?

That’s the post I was agreeing with. It doesn’t make sense that they’d fight due to excess testosterone.

@Pumperthepumper OK, I am getting confused!

@Pumperthepumper I imagine the men of that era would have been keen to avoid a fight. Maybe they had to if there was an argument over a dead deer and that was all their clan had to eat. I don't think they were testosterone filled rage machines wandering around looking for a fight.

Yes, I agree. Fighting would have been dangerous business because a lot of fights, even fairly easy ones, would have resulted in death due to infections or blood loss.

Interesting. I've seen both sides of this.

In my career it has absolutely been women who have helped me move up, but I'm a very supportive person rather than a 'leader' so to speak, but there's money to be had there.

IME at work the really ambitious go getting females were really tolerated admired by the men in senior roles, but anyone who showed kindness they would try to walk over. Luckily it was pretty much a 50/50 male/female split so I did well.

The primary school mums were another matter though - I just wasn't prepared for it. I was expecting an extension of my nice circle of friends but there were just so many bitchy, cliquey women who seemed to live for gossip and bringing other women down. The higher up the social scale, the worse it was, but that was a good few years ago. I made some good friends and it's all a distant blur now, but gosh at the time it really made me, like you OP, really reevaluate women unfortunately.

Are some women not actually moving back towards claiming that many women can indeed be more emotional than men as a result of their hormones? What are the male equivalents of pre-menstrual tension; pre- and post-natal anxiety, and peri-menopausal anxiety or depression? Men are not allowed to comment on these things without being accused of sexism, but women very much can and do claim these for themselves, not as social constructs, but as genuine physiological responses to hormonal fluctuations.

@Pumperthepumper yes, good points

Yes, that's a very interesting point. I believe this fluctuation in women's hormonal state was often used in history, particularly medicine, to label women as irrational. Obviously this has compounded women's inferior status in society. There's a shift now to women talking about these experiences and how it affects their lives, rather than male professionals labelling them and telling them what it means. (And quite often misdiagnosing them.) I think the act of self reflection, considering what hormonal fluctuations do to our mental state, is entirely rational. This self reflection is necessarily something women must claim for themselves as it is their lived experience, beyond the comprehension of men. I am sure men do experience hormonal fluctuations, but it is less talked about. We do know that women's hormones have not prevented them from engaging in rational pursuits. We have seen female chess players, monarchs, scientists etc. Are we going backwards if we talk about the mental and physical challenges that come with a female biology? I don't know. I am sorry I don't have a better answer, maybe someone else does.

YABU and I'm confused by the title: '....than people would like to admit'. People love saying the ridiculous shite in the OP? It's literally a bunch of generic sexist tropes so overused they've become cliche, hardly some secret truth no one dare say.

(And predictably the thread has devolved into half-baked evolutionary psychology, a field so pseudo scientific it's barely a step above astrology)

I worked mostly in female dominated if not exclusively female workplaces and my experience has been overwhelmingly positive, with fantastic bosses invested in my professional development and remaining good friends with colleagues after leaving. I've met some horrible people too cos women are, yanno, people. I've never understood the urge to put men on pedestals the way PP do. Its hilarious to suggest that men can't be bitchy, cliquey, vindictive, immature and disloyal. I don't think some people live in the real world.

Tbh any explanation from evolutionary psychology is no better than Benny Hill's cavemen and less funny (at least less intentionally funny).

I fully agree with this. I have grown up with brothers and our family always joked that the golden haired boys got whatever they wanted. I on the other hand got absolutely nothing from my mother, if I did I had to really work hard for. Tbf though it didn’t do me any harm later in life.
I have also worked with mainly women and that was awful! Everyone constantly trying to be better then the other girls and constant jealousy. I now work with mainly men and I love it, hardly any drama and generally a good laugh on a professional level. We all have a level of competition but it is made in quite a fun way. I don’t think I will ever work in an office again that was dominantly women

@Pumperthepumper
@gnilliwdog

Fights and wars have always resulted in death. There is actually good evidence of male violence in pre history from fossils which display evidence of fractures which could only be caused by Stone Age weapons.
Look at chimps, male chimps will literally go off and try kill members of other family groups, fights are dangerous for them.

@YesJess
@gnilliwdog
@Pumperthepumper

Testosterone didn’t one day evolve to be more in human males. It was always far more because human males are a line of evolution from earlier humanoids who in turn evolved from other primates - all of these species had males with higher testosterone just as all primates do (hence the agression), human males simply continued on acting as their evolutionary ancestors had but they did it with bigger brains and more intelligence.

human males and females didn’t evolve similar testosterone unlike their primate ancestors then evolve back to give human males more testosterone, males have literally had more testosterone forever.

@Pumperthepumper

Testosterone isn’t a theory it’s effects are well known.

Yes men in packs are much easier to work with than a group of women. Too bitchy.

OP we are all individuals, you can't make broad brush generalisations of a whole gender.

Sounds like you have unresolved problems from your childhood that probably need a bit more attention.

No, the effects are not ‘well known’ because there is no definitive link between testosterone and aggression. I’ve literally just provided pages of evidence to show that.

What about school bullies- we certainly here more about primary age girl fall outs more than boys on mn imv.

What about school bullies- we certainly here more about primary age girl fall outs more than boys on mn imv.

Boys fall out all the time but from my observations that big bust up in the morning is forgotten about in the afternoon.

You keep changing your argument.

First you said there was no 'definite proof', now you're saying there's no 'link'.

Some of the studies I've posted state there is a well documented 'link' and they actually use that word.

It’s the same thing. They’re all careful to say it’s not definitive proof.

It's pretty well known that testosterone influences violence. Hardly a revelation.

It doesn’t though. You won’t be able to find any definite evidence that it does. Another poster is desperate to find it too, but it doesn’t exist.