Women prefer working for male bosses

[DamsonInDistressss]

It seems a common argument that the lack of women in senior management positions is a result of the patriarchy. However, I was surprised to read in a recent thread on here that the majority of women prefer female bosses and are more likely to collaborate with a man than with another woman. I can't find that thread so am reposting here.

If true, this is surely a prime example of us women shooting ourselves in the foot and must be a serious contributor to male dominance.

Interesting because my personal experience has been the opposite. I've had only great female managers but some awful male ones.

I've worked in a wide range of organisations and have found that while my female managers and colleagues have worked collaboratively the male bosses just couldn't switch their competitiveness off. Even where they were supposed to be working as a team. Drives me nuts!

I've had one excellent male boss and one (current) excellent female boss. In between had a mixture of OK and rubbish male and female bosses

I think lots of women think they get on with men better in general

Also, every poster on the thread so far has had issues with specific female managers and have now decided all female managers are bad.

What thread are you reading? Quite a few posters have said no such thing.

I think the bigger issue is that with fewer women in the workplace (in aggregate), when we encounter a bad female boss we attribute her badness to her femaleness. ie Joanna was a bad boss, women tend to be bad bosses.
When we encounter a bad male boss.. because there are so many men around.. we attribute their badness to some other trait. John is a bad boss.. ooh I hate working for Liverpuddlians. Or some such thing.

This is often why it feels like ethnic / racial minorities and women are held to a higher standard - because each individual is expected to represent the group, while with straight white men we see each individual as just representative of that individual.

I would guess that large numbers of women in the UK have probably only ever had female bosses. I know that as a whole women are underrepresented at management level in big business etc. But there are also many jobs where the vast majority of staff are female so it stands to reason that the managers mostly are as well (although not always, obviously). But you're likely to have mostly directly reported to women if you are, for example, a nurse, a care worker or work in a shop. Or even, to an extent, if you work in banking at the customer facing level, or in the accounts or HR department of a business.

It stands to reason that having a vagina makes you a bad boss coz hormones or something.

Tbh, I’d be worried about the prospect of you representing a man in legal decisions that could significantly affect his life. You seem to have a serious grudge against men, and this is without having even entered the corporate world properly yet!

How did you reach this ridiculous conclusion? Once again, opposing misogyny is decried as having "a serious grudge against men".

Haha this thread is hilarious. For some reason most of the posters aren't regulars here.
As we seem to be doing anecdata, most of the women I've worked for have been amazing. One was ineffectual. The men have varied between absolute shit and awesome.
The only gender difference I have noticed is I have never had a woman make sexual comments to me, imply I only got my job because more senior boss wanted to shag me or tell me I'm too assertive to get on with and need to shut up.

What agenda?

I notice you pick up on that rather than the OP's previous ridiculous comments aimed at me, pasted in my previous posts. As to your last comments to me, suffice to say they were also belittling, once again aimed at eroding my confidence and suggesting I've only had work experience I have due to my dad's profession (never mind anything I've achieved).

Much as I suspect the the thread was started hoping for a stream of criticism of "female bosses", it's very disheartening to see, especially as someone who has firm career plans as do all my friends. Many falling over themselves to say they'd rather work for men, judging all women on the actions of a tiny number, the OP claiming I have "a serious grudge against men" for opposing misogynist attitudes which is absolutely ridiculous and would be laughable if it didn't show how standing up against misogyny is labelled "anti-men", the plethora of evidence not least coming out recently of how many men in positions of power act in particular towards women completely disregarded, someone who's apparently a teacher going on about how much they prefer male bosses (I dread to think how they're judging and treating the girls compared to the boys they teach). Throw in Lass making comments suggesting I only got work experience because of my dad and all in all, sitting here waiting for my first lessons, it is rather dispiriting, primarily because all this is on a thread mainly populated by women, all this casual misogyny and dismissing of women. Makes me realise that many women will and probably already do judge me negatively purely because of my sex too.

I ws one of those who said they prefer male bosses to women. This was based on experience, not "true" preference. I would love to find a strong, secure, supportive female manager. But I have never found one. They have been bullies and sarcastic. I have also found women bosses to be harder on women than the men. It seems to be a thing that women are not backwards in coming forwards in rebuking other women, but when a male direct report needs managing, they shirk from it, or take the "ah bless him" approach. I have only ever had one great manager, a male one. I have also had lots of mediocre and patronising male bosses. But faced with the low level anxiety induced by having to face a female boss every day, I will take the mediocrity, patronisation and casual sexism every time. I don't take pleasure in that, it is just my opinion drawn from personal experience.

Yeah, I’m not buying this all female bosses are awful line, either.

Anecdote is meaningless.

But for all those who genuinely think, or have said, that female bosses are worse, why do you think that is?

Are you saying that women are just crap at leadership? Or naturally bitchy?

Or trying to navigate man’s world leads women to always be held to a higher standard?

What do you think the reason is?

I have always worked in very female dominated spaces

I dont think i have had a bad manager at all except for the men in one of my jobs as a teenager...which was more sex/creepy based although they were perfectly pleasant usually

I have only had one manager immediately in charge of me and that was when my supervisor was on maternity leave

He was lovely but then ive liked most of my managers/supervisors. I cant think of a bad one, although having said that one of them was a little bit fogetful and didnt do chunks of work which if tackled by senior management would always be someone else's fault

Thats me personally though

I should imagine a company full of feminists, who understand what it’s like to navigate life as a woman, completely appreciate childcare problems, and working with men general, would be a bit of a dream.

I work at a human rights type organisation. Does loads of work to fight** discrimination in the workplace. My department isn’t focused on gender issues specifically though, but everyone is passionate about the organisations goals. My female boss was horrible to me when I was pregnant. I have heard one of the most senior females in the organisation say that she would never employ a 30-ish woman as they just get pregnant. I missed out on a really good promotion a few years ago I announced I was pregnant about 5 months later and everyone agreed and commented that it was a good job I didn’t get the promotion. It’s certainly not just me who has been given a very hard time for being pregnant. From knowing and working with these women for years they all consider themselves feminists- but they are of the “school” of feminism where you (had to) work your ass off and don’t have children . They had to choose between career or family (and I have no doubt that they genuinely did have to make a choice) and don’t see that things have or rather should have changed. It all seems quite....bitter.
I am sure that this is not representative of women bosses in general. I wish it wasn’t true of my organisation.

The top para of that should he been in bold or “” - not sure why it didn’t work

I have been in the work place for 40 odd years and in all that time the majority of bosses I have had were men. With the exception of one guy they were all misogynistic , sexist bullies - and useless to boot.
Both female managers I have had were lovely - supportive and fair as well as good at their jobs. I would far rather work with women than men. IME if you challenge men in the workplace they will just ignore you or talk over the top of you. Women will listen.

Also, every poster on the thread so far has had issues with specific female managers and have now decided all female managers are bad. Would you have thought the same if your old boss was black / disabled? I think not!

Nobody has said anything of the sort. Posters have posted their life and work experience. Where that doesn't suit the agenda of certain posters it is then dismissed as anecdote or in your case twisted into something no one has said.

Yeah, I’m not buying this all female bosses are awful line, either

Has anyone said that? I certainly didn't. I said that of the small number of truly awful bosses I have come across ( not worked for personally but seen in action) the majority were women.

I'm not buying the "they have to try so much harder line" by the time I met them they were senior and established yet still awful to their staff.

I think there's a few things going on

Nobody much likes being told what to do but we're happier about it if we perceive the teller to be substantially higher status than us. Men get a status boost just from being men.

We expect women to be nice, socially skilled and emotionally intelligent so we notice it more when they're not

There are lots of handy 'bad female boss' stereotypes available so we slot women into them as Zaphod says upthread. Bad male bosses are seen as a one-off

I'm not buying the "they have to try so much harder line" by the time I met them they were senior and established yet still awful to their staff.

So why do you think that is?

Do you think women make worse bosses and if so why? ? Or do you think, it evens out across the sexes.

I understand why this would be, I've always preferred most of my male bosses and gotten on with them better than female ones (except for my current female assistant manager who is great).

Most of the female bosses I've worked for have been bastards to deal with, but I feel this is because they've had to become that way to get ahead, they've found it's the only way to be taken seriously in a largely male surrounding.
Knowing the reason why they're probably so difficult to work for doesn't make it a more pleasant experience as the person working under them though.

I do also feel that for some women they have a chip on their shoulder from the struggles they've had to overcome in their progression. I've seen male bosses on the same level as some female ones and it's the men who have been more encouraging of other people wanting to progress themselves, whereas the female ones weren't as nearly encouraging or helpful with it.

So whilst I don't think it's necessarily through sexist reasons that more people prefer male bosses, I definitely think it stems from sexist behaviour that a lot of female bosses are much more difficult to work for.

Bad male bosses are seen as a one-off

God knows why, because there are loads of them about.

Like Quentin, I've noticed there is a high proportion on this thread who are not regular posters. Wonder why.

I've had good and bad men and women bosses. Few of us on here, even if we had changed our job every six months and worked for 50 years would have had a sample that approaches statistical significance set against the thousands of bosses in the workplace. The play of chance is very mean.

I'd like to hope that anyone here who is in a job that affects other people's lives base their decisions on a slightly better evidence base than they have used on this thread. Yes...I know, I am taking it too seriously

DamsonInDistressss

What’s the point of your opening post? Because I noticed, elsewhere, you have asserted you don’t think there is such thing as male violence. Only ‘individual’ violence. Which makes me wonder why are you are posting this on a feminist board.

Is your post just idle speculation? Or do you have a position about this?