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WOMEN BULLIES AT WORK
WOMEN BULLYING WOMEN
I wrote about women bullying women yesterday.
The subject is not new but whenever it comes up it seems to fade away soon after.
It’s politically incorrect say—never mind suggest—that women bully other women but women are people too and they have the same emotions, feelings, ambitions and fears as men.
We know girls bully girls in grade school, middle school and high school.
It happens at work more than you’d think.
There are lots of reasons for it.
Some of them are covered in this piece, “Backlash: Women bullying women at work” by Mickey Meece in the New York Times on May 9, 2009 and she quotes studies
done in 2007. And it goes back further than that!
(I did say the subject has been around for a while!)
That was the beginning of the financial turn down. It is still with us, of course.
I’ve edited the piece somewhat, for length, but Ms Meece’s main points remain.
Backlash: Women bullying women at work.
YELLING, scheming and sabotaging: tell-tale signs that a bully is at work.
As stress levels rise, workplace researchers say, bullies sharpen their elbows and ratchet up their attacks.
It’s probably no surprise that most of these bullies are men but 40 percent of bullies are women. They prefer their own kind, choosing other women as targets more than 70 percent of the time.
Just the mention of women treating other women badly on the job seemingly shakes the women’s movement to its core. It is what Peggy Klaus, an executive coach in Berkeley, Calif., has called “the pink elephant” in the room.
Women don’t like to talk about it.
“Women don’t like to talk about it because it is “so antithetical to the way that we are supposed to behave to other women,” Ms. Klaus said. “We are supposed to be the nurturers and the supporters.”
(Many) women…recount examples of how women — more than men — have mistreated them.
“I’ve been sabotaged so many times in the workplace by other women, I finally left the corporate world,” said Roxy Westphal, who runs Roxy Ventures Inc.
BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL
A private accountant in California said she recently joined a company and was immediately frozen out by two women working there. One even pushed her in the cafeteria during an argument, “It’s as if we’re back in high school,” she said.
One reason women choose other women as targets “is probably some idea that they can find a less confrontative person or someone less likely to respond to aggression with aggression,” said Gary Namie, research director for the Workplace Bullying Institute.
But another dynamic may be at work. After five decades of striving for equality, women make up more than 50 percent of management, professional and related occupations, says Catalyst, a nonprofit research group. And yet, its 2008 census found, only 15.7 percent of Fortune 500 officers and 15.2 percent of directors were women.
Women “overly aggressive?”
Leadership specialists wonder, are women being “overly aggressive” because thereare too few opportunities for advancement? Or is it stereotyping and women are only perceived as being overly aggressive?
Research on gender stereotyping from Catalyst suggests that no matter how women choose to lead, they are perceived as “never just right.”
Charlotte Whitten’s comment (Charlotte Whitten, a mayor of Ottawa twice in the 50s and 60s famously said: “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily,this is not difficult.”)
“If women business leaders act consistent with gender stereotypes, they are considered too soft,” a 2007 study found. “If they go against gender stereotypes, they are considered too tough.”
“Women feel they have to be aggressive to be promoted,” said Laura Steck, an executive leadership coach, “and they keep it up. Then, suddenly, they see the need to be collegial and collaborative instead of competitive.
(A group famous for bullying was once nicknamed the Bully Broads!)
Joel H. Neuman, a researcher at the State University of New York at New Paltz, says most aggressive behavior at work is influenced by a number of factors associated with the bullies, victims and the situations in which they work.
“This would include issues related to
- frustration
- personality traits
- perceptions of unfair treatment
- and an assortment of stresses and strains associated with today’s leaner and ‘meaner’ work settings,” he said.
Bullying involves verbal or psychological forms of aggressive (hostile) behavior.
NEGATIVE BEHAVIOR
Negative behaviors include:
- being glared at in a hostile manner
- given the silent treatment
- being treated in a rude or disrespectful manner, among other things.
Some reports indicate that 37 percent of workers have been bullied.
Two Canadian researchers set out to examine the bullying that pits women against women. They found that some women may sabotage one another because they feel that helping their female co-workers could jeopardize their own careers.
One of the researchers, Grace Lau, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Waterloo, said the goal was to encourage women to help one another. She said: “How? One way we predicted would be to remind women that they are members of the same group.”
In the workplace, however, it is unlikely that women will constantly think of themselves as members of one group, she said. They will more likely see themselves as individuals, as they are judged by their performance.
“As a result, women may not feel a need to help one another,” she said. “They may even feel that in order to get ahead, they need to bully their co-workers by withholding information like promotion opportunities, and that women are easier to bully than men because women are supposedly less tough than men.”
“We’re competing with our sisters for dad’s attention, or for our brother’s attention,” another woman said.
“And then we go on in school and we’re competing for our teachers’ attention. We’re competing to be on the sports team or the cheer squad.” Women can combat this, several interviewees said by encouraging women to work for a common cause, much like the environment envisioned by the Canadian researchers.
“The time has come,” one person said, “for us to really deal with this relationship that women have to women, because it truly is preventing us from being as successful in the workplace as we want to be and should be.
“We’ve got enough obstacles; we don’t need to pile on any more.”
End of Ms Meece’s piece.
COMMENTARY
I agree with the comments above but I think there is something fundamentally underpinning this insidious behavior that never seems to even come up, let alone get addressed.
That is the question of the self.
People who have a healthy sense of self don’t bully others.
People who have a strong self-concept usually don’t either.
If you know who you are and are happy with yourself, bullying never enters your mind.
It isn’t a tool you need.
Competition, upbringing, the stress of the workplace, career–-building, societal norms
—all of these and more influences enter into the make-up of a bully but self-possessed
people still don’t bully; moreover, they don’t stand for bullying.
They fight back. Fast and effectively.
If you feel you are not adequately equipped to stand up for yourself in the face of any kind of bullying, perhaps you need to strengthen your Self.
To do that you have to get to know yourself.
You can start by signing up for my FREE Ebook called FOUR QUESTIONS TO CHANGE
YOUR LIFE!
You’ll find the sign-up box at the top of this column on the right hand side.
It’s part of our work here at Self-Knowledge College.
If bullying is a problem, you must strengthen your sense of self.
If you’ve been hurt by bullying I urge you to join me.
Don’t cry any longer.
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I’m on your side.
Frank
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