BS: Why don't women work well together ?

Subject: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: GUEST,Sleepless Dad
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 01:44 PM

It's been my observation that women who would normally be supportive of other women change quite a bit when they work in the same office. For some reason they seem to get bitchy and catty toward each other in a way that men never seem to do. It's almost as if they can't share the same sand box. And it amazes me that these wonderful women { outside the office } seem to go out of their way to find things to fight about from nine to five. Again I'm only talking about the experiences I've had in the workplace. Am I off base ? Have others seen this phenomenon ? Can women expect to break the glass ceiling while this is going on ?

Please convince me I'm wrong about this.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 01:52 PM

A Hymn to Him

Maybe there are sometimes different techniques of fighting or collaborating, but essentially there's the same ratio between the two, in my experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: DougR
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 01:54 PM

I've seen such problems only when there is an uneven number of women employed in the office. Two women seem to get along well. Put a third one in the office, and there is often friction. I don't know why.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 01:55 PM

It's due to a phenomenon called internalized oppression, which is a divisive factor within every group that shares a strong commonality but which has a different guise/different content within each group. See the last paragraph of that citation in particular.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: gnu
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 02:35 PM

Wail 'til I get my ten, no, make that twenty foot pole. Nice try, but this little black duck ani't landing on that pond.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: Charmion
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 02:39 PM

After more than 30 years as (1) a woman and (2) an employed woman and (3) a woman employed in a traditional female trade in an overwhelmingly male environment, I hereby offer the following observations:

a. Men can be every bit as bitchy as women, and can use identical tactics and strategy to undermine each other

b. Women who benefit from good leadership and are confident of fair treatment in the workplace tend to support their colleagues and focus on achieving the mission

When I have found myself in a workplace full of strife, rumours and backbiting, I have observed that the men gossip, tattle, form cliques and backstab just as vigorously as the women do. I have also noticed that this kind of behaviour *always* appears in the absence of competent leadership, and often indicates a boss who is a conniving liar relying on divide-and-conquer tactics to keep the workforce in line.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 02:42 PM

When I had a new well put in last year it was an all male crew that dug it (can you dig it?), so I've never really watched women work wells together.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 02:50 PM

Sleepless Dad, I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. At least you're wrong to characterize this as a "women" thing. It's a human tendency to misbehave if the dynamics of the office have problems.

I work in a great office with a dozen women and rarely see aspects of the kind of thing that concerns you.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 03:58 PM

I agree with Stilly on this. Women often work together quite harmoniously.

When women DO have problems getting along together, the symptoms are obvious. Maybe that's why Sleepless is noticing it in the office.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: Peace
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 05:13 PM

Not a gender-related issue, IMO.

Some folks couldn't work with anyone because they have problems. Others can work with anyone.

That presents a paradox.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: freda underhill
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 05:15 PM

women can be very supportive or very destructive. and they do both very competently.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: Mooh
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 05:32 PM

Back in the days when I worked as a fulltime labour representative, I found that the bargaining units which were all or mostly women had more grief between workers themselves, and between workers and management. For a while I mistakenly believed it was a gender thing, but came to understand it had much more to do with the pink collar ghetto-ization of the workforce. These were mostly healthcare workers in the public sector, hospitals, nursing homes, shelters, etc. It had more to do with systemic malfunction, mistreatment, mismanagement, manipulation, prejudice, and crapola wages, than gender.

My personal experience of working with women has been very positive, including when I was the lone guy in an office with several others workers.

I hear tales, but I bet men are as bad. And we jump to gender conclusions too readily.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: Once Famous
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 05:58 PM

It is a woman thing.

It's as Sleepless Dad describes it here at my office and really bad where my wife works.

It goes along with the phenomen as to why women:

* will go the bathroom together at a restaurant for example. Men never do that.

* will make comments about each others attire, especially feeling bad if another woman has the same outfit as herself. Men don't really care.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: Layah
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 06:10 PM

I've always thought the question is not why women go to the bathroom together, but why men don't. Then I realized that men don't get their own private stalls. No wonder you don't want your friends in the bathroom with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: harpgirl
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 06:24 PM

Excellent observation, Susan! Here is the last paragraph for the lazy ones:

Most damage done by oppression is done by its internalized form, in which the victims continue to oppress themselves, oppress each other within the group of the oppressed, and, as a group, attempt to oppress other groups and the members of these other groups who are oppressed in a similar way to the way their group is oppressed. The person outside a particular oppression can be powerfully effective against the internalized form of the oppression.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 08:51 PM

I've seen some of the same behavior at my office. It's always been a sourch of amazement for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: GUEST,most mens fantasy
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 09:35 PM

girl on girl fight action.. Yeah !!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: Gypsy
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 10:38 PM

People is people. You gots yer bitchy ones, and yer harmonious ones. And gender doesn't have a whole lot to do with it. It is just the human equation. I mean, how many threads have degenerated into hissing, spitting catfights? If you look, the gender is pretty even in those, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: LadyJean
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 11:52 PM

Sometimes it's paranoia. If a woman is afraid she'll lose her job, if someone younger and better looking comes along, she'll see most other women as threats, and try to sabotage them.
Some workplaces are just plain nasty. Everybody snipes at each other. You have to watch your back constantly. When that happens, management is the problem, not the rank and file.
The one and only woman in the Ohio University school of journalism was very hard on her woman studetnts. Of course she was harder on men.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: Scoville
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 12:29 AM

I think both genders are probably as bad but I suspect it just manifests itself differently. I've had friends working on mostly-male staffs that said there was still plenty of backbiting and sabotage, it just wasn't in the same form as that which women inflict on one another.

I work in an almost-entirely female environment and yes, there is plenty of tension, but I agree that a lot of this is due to poor management. I think it's also interesting to note that the office I work in now has a habit of hiring the sisters, cousins, in-laws, and long-time friends of current employees so practically everyone is related (they also tend to hire back ex-employees, even if they were not entirely satisfactory the first time around). I am one of the only people who is NOT related somehow to any other staff members, except a receptionist who was a coworker of mine at a previous job. The previous job was in the same field and, though it had plenty of problems, none of the employees were related and there was considerably less inter-employee "aggression" (and what there was was less disruptive of the work environment).

Personally, I can work with nearly anyone, even if I don't like her as an individual. I'm not out to sabotage anyone and as long as she doesn't try to get in my way, I don't care who she is.

Subject: RE: BS: Why don't women work well together ?
From: GUEST,Catter
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 11:58 AM

I'm not giving out my identity.

There is one other male where I work. I am the top dog in a city department, subject only to a Board of Directors and not the council. There are 23 women.

Right now there is one person who is backbiting, complaining about other (women) workers not doing their jobs, things like that. This person is not a supervisor, but a worker. Last year she was in two car accidents in two weeks, neither her fault, and was laid up for months so her coworkers covered for her, including the two she complains the most about.

Her current problems do not stem from the accidents and the problems she still has. They date from long before that, in fact they date from about six months after she started four years ago. She has been counseled, she has been given an oral reprimand, and her dissent-creating actions haven't stopped. I asked her supervisor and the supervisor's boss what they wanted to do -- we're going ahead with a written warning and a hearing by the city's human resource bureau. If this doesn't stop it she's out.

She has been very unhappy in her life, never achieving what she'd most like because she won't take the time. We've worked with her, even giving her challenges outside of her normal duties that she has said she'd like to take on.

It's sad and the decision was very hard. But we are not an aid station and we have an obligation to the citizens to get the work done. Everyone else -- EVERYONE -- works well together and there aren't any problems. It is probably the most harmonious place I've ever worked, except for one person. And because we know how good she could be and how much she could contribute, it made the decision doubly hard.

It certainly is not a gender thing.