Women at work

[OutofDepth1000]

What is it with all the back stabbing, gossiping and generally putting other women down. It hurts and makes my blood boil. We should be helping and supporting each other. At a meeting today the only other two women at a meeting eye rolled when I spoke. I can’t believe I witnessed that.
Any tips or words of wisdom to not let this get to me and strategy to support other women.

Luckily, I don't see this at my work - we're a pretty supportive bunch (irrespective of sex).

I think workplaces are complex. What's your workplace like otherwise? What's your relationship like with these women? What were you saying? Did you ask them why they did it afterwards? Sorry, lots of questions 😄.

You didn’t call them out on it ‘what’s your problem?’ (Or a more polite variation) usually works.

I’m getting far more political as I get older.

I totally get this, I started at a workplace to be a team leader for a group of girls who had all worked together for a few years and were roughly the same age as me (early twenties), after 3 weeks I walked out, they were so annoyed at the manager because he didn’t promote any of them and got me in as their leader they just took it out on me (which I can understand their frustration but still). The manipulative, spiteful and bitchy behaviour made me sit in my car and cry whilst on the phone to my boyfriend who told me to drive home and not go back, got to the point where I would walk in the office in the morning and say hello and not one of them would answer me. I asked them what their problem was and that I didn’t mean to cause any hostility and then they’d play nice for five minutes and just say they’re not doing anything to make me feel uncomfortable it was all in my head.

(Sorry to go on about myself) if you’ve got good management I would ask them the best way to approach ‘certain’ colleagues with this behaviour as I wish I did but my management was awful.
It’s amazing and empowering when a group of girls work well together but my god it can make your self esteem and confidence go so down hill when you don’t get along. I now work in an office that are mostly males and even though they’re still a bit bitchy, you don’t get any of snipes like other girls would.

This is likely why for decades women have consistently voted in preference of having a male boss (even more so than men do).

I've seen a lot of it having worked for several blue chip companies. Worst was a mid size law firm.

Thanks shooting star, that explains a lot of what I’ve experienced too. I did try to question them in the past and was told it was all in my head etc. All I did today was to politely le them know I had to leave the meeting but we could catch up at coffee (this was 1.5hrs) after my normal work finish time and my babysitter wasn’t able to stay any longer.
They’ve made my life hell for just shy of a year now. Criticising me behind my back, taking credit for my work, showing no support etc. I moved dept to get away from them but still need to work with them a lot. I don’t know what I actually ever did, other than be good at my job.

World of difference between working in a male dominated STEM environment, and a female dominated staff room teachers environment.

I wouldn’t believe it until I experienced both first hand.

Sometimes I think we are not the supportive sisterhood we like to think of ourselves to be.

I wish we could be a supportive sisterhood, so much would benefit if more women supported and looked out for each other. This includes supporting other women when they fail or don’t do as well- supporting other women in their learning and experiences

An interesting previous thread which covers similar topics: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3080265-Women-prefer-working-for-male-bosses

The OP obv meant to say "women prefer working for male bosses" in the opening post but put "female" by accident btw.

Sometimes you don’t do anything wrong, girls sometimes still act the way we would in school - be in a gang and carry to every other female that crosses them that they’re either intimidated by or is more popular because they’re just a genuinely nice person

Just stay strong, workplaces are never a complete pleasure to be at unless you run it yourself! You’re obviously a better person than them so just be mature and ignore them, or if they raise they’re eyebrows just say in a lickass voice ‘I’m so sorry, did I say something wrong?’

I think it's just offices in general, especially small ones. Lots of bored people sat with each other all day day in day out, they have to create drama to entertain their little minds

Thank you 👍🏼 I hope one day to be able work with a strong and supportive group of women.

On the flipside, I've definitely encountered more incompetent men at work. But the most spiteful colleagues have hands down been women, and the worst has been directed at other women.

I was totally unaware of it until the xmas party when I was sat with the girls from the sales admin team and they started character assassinating their boss after a few drinks. It had totally flown over my head up to that stage.

It depends, though, doesn't it?

I don't think that "being supportive of women" at work necessarily means that I should support their suggestions, opinions or take on things in general. Because sometimes I happen to think that a woman colleague's opinion on a given subject matter is plain wrong. Or not constructive. Or, in a single particular case for me personally, I just plain don't like her.

To me, supporting other women at work, however, very much does mean defending their right to be wrong, mediocre at what they do, annoying or just generally horrible people to the exact same extent as their male peers.

The one and only female mentor I've ever had in my life (I'm in STEM - there aren't that many of us, to begin with, and it gets worse as you rise up the ranks) once told me this: brilliant, likeable, hard-working women don't have a problem even in a male-dominated field. On the contrary, we're often beloved by bosses, subordinates and peers alike. It's when it comes to women being just as annoying, mediocre and generally strenuous as many of our male peers that the true struggle for equality begins. When a marginally competent, pretty lazy woman manages to slowly but steadily rise up the ranks until she's joined the countless crappy middle-managers that everyone loves to hate, the way men of the same type have been doing for ages, then that's true equality. And I think she's spot on, still!

Long story short: I don't think we should be supporting women's opinions on the grounds that we're women in a work context. Or necessarily listen to them if we happen to think their ideas are a bit shit. We absolutely should demand that, as women, we get away with being every bit as habitually crappy as seems to be effortlessly possible for men.

Basically, the support needs to pertain not to what we say or think but to our right to still be there even if others think we're a bit crap (or at least whatever we happen to be saying is).

Also, there's literally nothing bitchier than a bunch of male executives trying to one-up each other.

If you'd not rather be teleported into the Mean Girls school as a student than navigate the back-stabbing and bad-mouthing loaded world of corporate office politics in a male-dominated industry, I can only congratulate you on having been spared the petty fights of very senior men on a power trip.

That is a interesting perspective and I like that it has made me think of things in a different way. I should however add that it was the females in my experience who tried to push me out (they’d started to set me up to lose my job). It was a male in another dept that took me on as he saw it for what it was.

"What is it with all the back stabbing, gossiping and generally putting other women down"

Everyone should be doing a professional job at work, regardless of sex. The behaviour you describe isn't restricted to women, men can be just as difficult, but often aren't characterised as negatively as women can be.

Challenge people who behave shittily, and don't respond in kind.

‘.....don’t respond in kind’. That is advice I need to take, my DH just said the very thing. I try to get people (M or F) to like me if they are being mean, by trying to connect- I need to stop that 😩

I should however add that it was the females in my experience who tried to push me out (they’d started to set me up to lose my job).

I've never met your (obviously not particularly nice) female colleagues, but: is it possible that they were the only ones doing this because they may also have been the only ones even looking at you as serious competition?

TBH, I've always thought of that first time a male fellow manager tried to back-stab me as the moment when I started to be seen as a serious player in my own right. That or when my male boss demanded better of me for the first time. Up to that point, there was always the question of whether or not they thought of themselves as being nice for "letting the girl play, too". When they started trying to beat me I knew they thought I was worth taking seriously.

I couldn't possibly tell how your colleagues saw things (and I rather doubt you'd get a useful answer out of them if you asked). But I think there's a possibility it simply means they take you seriously (and want to beat you).

AssassinatedBeauty

Everyone should be doing a professional job at work, regardless of sex. The behaviour you describe isn't restricted to women, men can be just as difficult, but often aren't characterised as negatively as women can be

Challenge people who behave shittily, and don't respond in kind

Exactly.

I wish we could be a supportive sisterhood, so much would benefit if more women supported and looked out for each other. This includes supporting other women when they fail or don’t do as well- supporting other women in their learning and experiences

No, I'm an employer. I'm not going to cut you any slack or support you just because you are a woman. I will support all my employees and treat all of them fairly. If employees fail , they will be given a fair chance to explain/ recover and I would want to identify what caused the failure. It might be something I or the system dic.

But I expect them to act fairly towards me too. I'm not your sister ; don't try playing the sisterhood card on me and expect I will treat you differently from the mail employees.

I suppose it is subjective and down to personal opinion. I see men look out for men who don’t look out for women- though this can be applied to any gender. So I make a personal effort to try to support other women, whether that be endorsing their ideas of offering feedback. I don’t try to make anyone my sister and wouldn’t expect anything from anyone, that would be me expecting them to behave in a certain way. Support should be given authentically, however what I have experienced recently has been female coworkers being much harder and critical of other females in comparison to their male coworkers.

I think there are ways to ensure women aren't held back by men without resorting to the same kind of cronyism.

I would also be very wary of extrapolating from your own limited experience to making assumptions about men and women generally.

Whilst there is undoubtedly cronyism around, I think it's not always the case. Some of the studies in the thread I posted above found that women were, for whatever reason, not very good at collaborating with one another, which is odd as they seem to be the superior networkers in many companies I've worked in.

Hi OufofDepth, this is a workplace issue. I am a manager and would absolutely expect to know about this if it was happening in my team.

From a management perspective, allowing any kind of bullying is dangerous because a) it renders the employer vulnerable to employment claims; 2) it may lead to valued members of staff leaving; and 3) it is almost invariably the case that someone who behaves in a rude or demeaning way to one colleague will be doing so to others, and that this will be impacting on workplace efficiency.

In my experience bullies are invariably poor performers, because they cannot work with others or take criticism.

You should not be asking your manager how to deal with this because it is not something for you to deal with. Not your responsibility! That’s like asking how to deal with a violent man!

I would tell your manager what has happened, say you think this is bullying, that it has upset you, and ask the manager to take action. Also, keep a note of future occurrences.

I’m not convinced this is really a gender issue. I’ve encountered make and female workplace bullies. In every case, every one, they have been poor performers. It is about covering up inadequacies.