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.

I worked for years in an all-wonan office and it was quite poisonous. So much sniping and passive aggression. I notice on here that for so many women that is the go-to response when people are being arses, like it's learned behaviour, not to be assertive. It's utterly wearing behaviour.

I have worked in male dominated spaces which quickly became very ‘laddish ‘ and I have worked with predominately women and experienced bitchiness and bullying. The best mix is 50/50.

I agree. I used to work with mainly women and it was horrible. A guy joined and he was so nice. My (ex) best friend is a toxic bitch. I think women can be very supportive but I do think women can also be horrible to each other. More so than men.

I've worked in a variety of offices and the 50:50 split is always the nicest environment.

Too many males and it becomes blokey too much football and sex chat. I know, so cliché.

And yes too many women and it's a really birchy backstabbing place to be too.

I think people are toxic and there can be bad cultures, either within organisations, peers, families, all number of groups

I think that the world is fairly male centred, designed for and only thought about by men but I dont buy this 'patriarchy' and 'misogyny' reason or justification for all manner of things. Its a buzz word on this site, thrown around without thought.

Men and women are equal in my head and therefore if I dont like a concept, rule, behaviour, attitude or whatever it is, it makes no odds if its performed or applicable to a male or female. Yet I find if it criticise it in a woman Im apparently misogynistic. This is nonsense.

What Im really concerned about at the moment is the narrative among some organisations, some of them are public services that women are girls are now 'people'. Im quite uncomfortable with that.

Also to add, men are just as bitchy and gossipy in my experience!!

Yes I can honestly hand on heart say I have met as many nice men as I have women. I really genuinely feel sorry for some mumsnetters, you must have had terrible male relatives and awful relationships?? This is not to say they aren’t vicious horrible men but there are lots of good men too.

I've also worked temporarily in call centres and in my experience they seem to positively attract bitchy people, both male and female (there's a reason I left as soon as I could both times!).

I found other women quite harsh when I was a young women. As I got older and became a parent other women seemed more supportive and I felt more comfortable with them. The sense of competition seemed to go. I have met both male and female bullies in the workplace, however.

I went to an all girls (secondary) school and I did find it very bitchy.

Generally I've done better with male bosses than female bosses. But I have nice female bosses now. So I think it depends where you work and who you come into contact with.

Isn't this all just anecdotes though? I have worked for 2 females who were wonderful Andover seeing women progress. The female boss we have now is a vile misogynist who has bullied my best work friend out of her job, doesn't believe in progression for other women. Straight out of the Maggie Thatcher playback.

The male cronyism is my organisation is thoroughly toxic and there are plenty of femal misogynists.

A few people saying 'yes women are horrible' and some saying 'no, women are great', does not mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

All the stereotypes people are providing, cliquey, bitchy, etc., just seem to shout louder, playing straight into the patriarchy's hands of why women are shit bosses, over emotional etc.

Nobody visits a website to leave a great review for a restaurrant, but are fast to speak out if they've had a bad experience.

Toxic femininity is a thing same as toxic masculinity. People can be shitty.

Totally agree. Women can be fantastically supportive but they can also be the first to betray you & stab you in the back.

Tbh I prefer working in a male environment but I do have very loyal female friends in & out of the workplace.

It depends. I've worked with some very bitchy women, including a female boss who simply couldn't stand that I was slimmer than her and used to make sly comments about it all the time. I've also worked with some very toxic men - misogynistic, egotistical and just not that good at their job yet had bullshit their way up the career ladder. Where I work now has a lot of female bosses but they are genuinely women who empower you and have your back. When you get female leaders like that it is very powerful and effective but I imagine it's quite rare still.

Oh for sure. I’ve worked in all female teaching environments all my life until I had Dd…(won’t go back into it again) and I found the bullying, bitchiness, gossip, competitiveness etc very hard to take. I’ve made three of my best friends for life there, but to work in that environment again, no way.

Yanbu at all. The nastiest experiences in my life were at the hands and words of women.

This is very interesting. I do wonder how much of it is covert sexual competition. Would make sense as to why women can be so harsh to their young daughters in comparison to their sons.

YANBU

On here there’s always talk about controlling men but many of the threads are about controlling women.

It often seems it’s one rule for men and a completely different rule for women.

E.g. It’s absolutely fine for a women to go through a man’s phone, tell him he can’t go out with certain friends, not allow him to go to a holiday abroad etc but if a women came on here saying her DH has done any of those things he’d be called controlling, abusive and to LTB.

Some covert narcs are horrible to plain/old/fat/low status women who cannot validate them. They are right of course, said low status woman cannot validate them, nobody can, but they seek the validation that comes from association with high status women. ie, perceived to be popular and /or attractive, one of the bosses

@Mally100 Same. Never had issues with men.

However

When women really pull together as friends etc, they can be a positive force to be reckoned with and the biggest support.

You are definitely not wrong. I think there's always a few women who is jealous of other women. All these behaviour you described is exactly like teen girls in the secondary school.

Son being favoured possibly a culture thing, like my parents, there's no hiding about it, it's pretty awful.

You can have issue with men too but usually less personal.

I've had both inspirational female and male bosses. My team is currently and a split of sexes (unusual for financial services, which is normally more men at my level) and I don't recognise any of your OP in my current team.

That said, I have seen appalling behaviour on both sides. It's a cultural thing in my opinion. I don't see it purely as a female group dynamic. My current work culture squashes (quashes?!) that type of behaviour proactively.

@MarthaMayver maybe, I don’t think either sex has the monopoly on poor social skills and rudeness. People generally can be cruel, and the expectation that women wouldn’t be or shouldn’t be possibly makes it seem more covert in their case. I find people seem very comfortable with disliking women’s behaviour and often like to attribute to the fact of their femaleness. I also find when men behave badly, there seems to be a strong desire to attribute to anything but maleness. Not on here, but it’s anonymous on here.

when I think about it though- I’ve never been sexually assaulted by a woman, or catcalled, I’ve never been followed home at night by one. I’ve personally never worried a woman in my life might suddenly turn violent and hurt me (I know this does happen but it hasn’t happened to me and I don’t fear it, whereas I have with certain men).
I’m not worried that if I socially or romantically reject a woman that she would insult me, or doggedly pursue me to demand to know why, or aggressively ignore my lack of interest. I don’t know any people who have been murdered or savagely abused by women. When I’m walking alone at night and I see a woman, I typically don’t have any fear, in fact I feel relieved that if anything did happen to me there might be someone around who could help potentially.
I do worry women might be mean to me, but I don’t worry they will try to destroy me.

i think its just that some people (male or female) can be shit. i don't think you can separate it out to a sex-based comparison. I've met plenty of awful men and awful women.