At Work: Women Against Women

[MrMon]

This was brought up in another thread a few weeks ago but never really got started, and I'd like to make it a bit more generic than the original question. Why is it that often that in professional environments, the biggest impediments to women at work are other women? Sure, there is the usual crap women have to put up with from men, not to mention that especially among some older men, the really prefer to work with just other guys, but you would think that women would be sympathetic to other women about advancing in their career.

My wife is an attorney in a BigLaw firm, and several times in her career, she has run into Black Widows or Alpha Female Wolves who feel the need to absolutely destroy every other female in their group, or at least have them submissive to them. They don't do this to men, but they absolutely do this to all other women. If this type enters a group and there is a senior woman, they will also do their best to drive that woman out. Is this basic biology? Are they even aware they are doing it? Why does this occur? I'm looking for some ideas here, as well as other observations of this sort of behavior.

My wife is pretty immune to this type of behavior, having dealt with it earlier in her career, but since she's now older, younger attorneys seek her out about how to deal with these types. Her advice has been to fight back and don't accept it, because this sort of bully usually backs down, but when they're in a position of power, they can do a lot of damage to you, and she has seen careers ruined for no good reason other than the fact that these women want no other women who are a threat to them around.