All Women Secretly Hate Each Other

All Women Secretly Hate Each Other

Scientists apparently don't work in offices: * [Women who had only one female boss][1] reported more psychological distress (such as trouble sleeping, difficulty focusing on work, depression and anxiety) and physical symptoms (such as headaches, stomach pain or heartburn, neck and back pain and tiredness) than women who worked for one male boss... * The findings, specifically those of female subordinates with females bosses, contradict theories suggested by previous studies that demographic similarities between a boss and their subordinate would promote harmony in the work place, while demographic differences would create problems.I would suggest that the "theories" mentioned above are based more on political presumption than studies, as it is obvious to anyone who has worked in an office where a woman manages multiple women that they simply do not - cannot - get along with their subordinates.Over the course of 20 years I've had numerous female bosses, and I've gotten along with them swimmingly. They've been as competent as any other middle managers, as willing to listen to others as men, and basically not a problem for me to manage. Where they had problems, it was always with the women that they managed.The reason is not that women are incompetent in managerial roles; they're not. The problem is that All Women Secretly Hate Each Other (AWSHEO). While men have friends they seldom see - I have best buddies I see but once every five years, and we pick up just as if the last time I saw them was last Friday - women seem to have few friends like that. They are either best friends and thus inseparable or they are worst enemies - irreconcilable and willing to go out of their way to undermine another woman's position, reputation, and other friendships in the most hurtful way possible. Because women attach far more emotion to relationships than men, those relationships, whether at work or play, carry an intensity that cannot be set side just because one happens to be on the clock, especially when they go bad.While exceptions are probably not hard to find I suspect, I think that part of it arises from the nearly universal female trait of taking everything personally. If I have a boss - male or female - who's an idiot, I can accept that as a price to be paid for the fact that I don't aspire to that position, and I don't lose any sleep over it. But women, being by nature egalitarian creatures, are completely open in despising a female boss once they discover that she is not the boss because she's "better," but only because for whatever other reason, she's the boss. Female bosses, who also take such insubordination personally, are liable to go out of their way to make sure a female subordinate knows her place. The result is a continual catfight, especially when multiple female subordinates feel the same way and can gang up.All that said, I've never had a boss who was either a declared career woman or a feminist, consciously trying to prove that women were as good as men and therefore (over)using the "male" traits that all people find so insufferable in bosses, so maybe my experience is unusual. Each of them were* just as good as men, though most of them eventually left their positions to raise their kids full-time, a decision I completely understand and respect.