At Work: Women Against Women

[MatthewRyan]

This OP reminds me of women and their friends. Women rarely have long lasting friends, not many lifetime friends. Usually they have a 'Best FRIEND!' for a year or two and move on. Most guys on the other hand have friends they met 10 years ago or played soccer with in elementary school. Seems like this behavior is linked with how they operate in the work place.

[UATrewqaz]

This is a very real phenomenon but it exists outside the workplace as well.

The "social setting" examples used so far are very true, I've been witness to them.

A group of 3-4 "best friend" girls go out on the town for a girls night. One of those girls meets some dude and starts chatting it up. The other girls will go batshoot crazy, they'll either attempt to break them apart, or steal the guy away for themselves, or just out and out destroy her emotionally ([censored], whore, fat skank, etc.)

Men don't define themselves compared to other men as much as women define themselves compared to other women.

[MrMon]

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1. I really don't see this sort of behavior in men. Sure, there are alpha males who want other to be submissive to them, but they don't drive out every other guy in the office, not that that would be an option. Guys have a way of doing it that forms a team, some women seem to be lacking in that ability.

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That is probably the key. Imagine alpha male working in an office full of women, when beta male suddenly encroaches on his territory. I don't think his behavior would be any different to an alpha female in an office full of men.

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2. Guys that dominate seem to demand that everyone submit to them. Women rarely demand the men be submissive or disappear, only other women. Why?

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I'm not so sure. My experience with alpha males has been that they are nice as pie around women.

However, I'm not really disagreeing with you on the whole, I just think women v. women, although probably real, is also a pretty small effect and tends to be magnified in men's eyes. I hear it occasionally used to support arguments about the glass ceiling, when there are far more important factors explaining that effect.

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I agree with you that the number of women who do what I posted originally is small, but I think what everyone is overlooking in the research world is their effect is magnified far beyond what everyone thinks. I haven't got a complete model of how it would work yet, but let's walk through what I've come up with.

First off, the idea of the Queen Bee first shows up in the early 1970s, about the time more and more women are entering the professional workforce. That paper is still quoted, but it was poo-pooed for a number of years because it didn't fit feminist theory, it seemed to blame women for their failures, and the original paper seemed to claim the trait was more widespread that it probably is. But let's make it rare and see what happens.

So let's start with an all male law firm, 100 lawyers, 10 groups of 10 lawyers each. (The numbers that go in this model are of course, variable, and may radically alter the result. I'm just guessing initially what the values should be. Real research would put real number in the model.) They get progressive and decide to start hiring new lawyers in equal numbers of male and female. Each group hires one new lawyer a year, so that's 10 new lawyers a year, 5 male and 5 female. The average stay of a senior lawyer at the firm is 20 years, so 5 senior lawyers leave every year. This means the firm should grow at a net of 5 lawyers per year. After 20 years, there should be 200 lawyers in the firm, all the original lawyers would have left, and the 200 lawyers would be made up of the 10 lawyers hired per year, which should be 100 men and 100 women. But we know this doesn't happen. Enter the Queen Bee effect.

We need an incidence of how common Queen Bees are - but let's make them pretty rare, say 1 out of 20 women. For simplicity, let's make them 100 percent effective, they will drive out all other women that come after them. And again for simplicity, let's start with the assumption that they will not drive out women that are there before them, although I know anecdotally that this is not true. So out of the 100 women lawyers that will be hired in 20 years, just 5 will be Queen Bees.

Let's say that in Year 1, a Queen Bee is hired, and she goes to Group A. In the next 19 years, 19 more lawyers will be hired, 9 women and 10 men. But all 9 women are knocked out the Queen Bee A. Again, to simplify, let's not hire any replacements, so after 20 years, Group A is 11 lawyers, 1 woman and 10 men.

For Group B, they bring in the Queen Bee in Year 5. She's the 3rd woman in the group, and they then stall at 3 women, as the 7 other women quit, the group is at 13 in Year 20, 3 women, 10 men.

Group C goes through the same process starting in Year 9, resulting in 5 women, 10 men.

Group D starts in Year 13, 7 women, 10 men in Year 20.

Group E starts in Year 17, 9 women, 10 men in Year 20.

Groups F, G, H, I, & J are unaffected and have 10 men and 10 women in Year 20.

So now the firm has 75 women and 100 men. Although rare, only 5% of the workforce, the Queen Bees have managed to knock out 25% of the women hired, a multiplier of 5x. And just imagine if they could also knock out some of the women just ahead of them, the multiplier would be 6 or 7 times in our model. And even if replacements are hired to reach the original goal of 200, all the replacements will in the end be men, so the firm is now 125:75 rather than 100:100.

Now, add in the problem of women dropping out to raise families, plus the usual crap they get from guys, and it seems possible that the Queen Bee effect really is a problem at achieving a 50-50 workforce, even when hiring at an equal rate, and even given that Queen Bees are rare.

Sure, the model is simplistic and could use some real world data, but it seems to show that the idea is not completely off the mark.

[TiK]

I work at a large lawfirm, and I have noticed that certain female partners treat female associates like utter crap, much worse than male associates. I was having a converation with a female associate who once worked under that partner who noted that the partner, being older, and one of the earlier women to make it through the glass ceiling is bitter that women nowadays are having an easier time rising in ranks, and thus feels the need to give them [censored] equal to what she went through.

This seems different than cattiness amongst women of more similar status, but also seems relevant to the general topic.

[7ontheline]

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I work at a large lawfirm, and I have noticed that certain female partners treat female associates like utter crap, much worse than male associates. I was having a converation with a female associate who once worked under that partner who noted that the partner, being older, and one of the earlier women to make it through the glass ceiling is bitter that women nowadays are having an easier time rising in ranks, and thus feels the need to give them [censored] equal to what she went through.

This seems different than cattiness amongst women of more similar status, but also seems relevant to the general topic.

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You'll see this in a number of professions. Training for general surgeons used to be really brutal (as opposed to just pretty brutal) and a lot of older surgeons are really upset that people are instituting things liek 80 hour resident work weeks, mandatory nights off after call, etc. They feel like everyone should have to go through the same hazing type stuff they did.

[The Bride]

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Sure, the model is simplistic and could use some real world data, but it seems to show that the idea is not completely off the mark.

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Here's the reason I don't think its a big effect. At one point I was involved with a large corporation that prided itself on being liberal and progressive. Some of the women were complaining of a glass ceiling, so the corporation did an inventory of resources allocated to employees above a certain level of seniority. They were horrified to discover that women were getting significantly fewer resources than men. It caused quite a commotion. The kicker however, was that a few months later someone decided to reanalyze the data, but broke the women down according to whether they had families. The upshot was that the effect disappeared: if you compared women without families to men there was no difference in terms of resource allocation. I know this is only one step above anecdotal, but IMHO it is a much bigger part of what holds a woman back (at least in comparison to the queen bee effect). Losing even just a few months out of your career (and the time you are then playing catch-up) is enough to produce an apparent glass ceiling.

[Fast Food Knight]

Whoa boy. What a good thread topic.

I landed a very nice corporate job right out of college doing Six Sigma work for Home Depot. Our team consisted of 3 guys and me, and we reported to a 30 year old minority female.

The setup was individual project work. In the 8 months I was working there, I finished 4 projects. One other guy on the team finished one, the rest finished zero projects in this time frame.

The team consisted of 2 analysts and 2 engineers. I was an analyst. Every other team member had a laptop allowing them to work from home. I did not.

I became a SQL expert and wound up providing everyone on the team with all the data and information they needed for their projects. I was also unanimously considered the best at presentations, which is important when you are pitching projects to upper management.

Our manager gave the guys tips and suggestions on their projects. All I got were terse requests for "status updates". The other team members got to choose their project due dates, mine were strictly assigned.

Less than a year ago, I was written up for "not meeting expectations." Work was piled on me with ridiculous due dates. I busted my ass. My manager gave me really positive feedback at this time. One month later, I was fired for supposedly not getting this work done on time (which I did). The bitch hated me, set me up for failure, smiled at me and told me I was doing great, and then fired me. Since I left she has fired 2 other girls.

So I whole-heartedly agree that this is a very common issue in the workplace. I feel as if it must be rooted in biology. I have wondered if my particular situation was heightened by the fact that she was an immigrant and minority... meaning, she felt a more emphatic need to compete and succeed. I don't know, but it was a very valuable lesson in many regards, and I will be happy if I never have to work for another woman again.

[suzzer99]

Wow. Did you ever try to go over her head and plead your case?

Boy Six Sigma and write-ups bring back some fun corporate memories. A write-up is rarely anything other than a formality so someone can fire you. If you want to save your job start CYA.

[guids]

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Sure, the model is simplistic and could use some real world data, but it seems to show that the idea is not completely off the mark.

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Here's the reason I don't think its a big effect. At one point I was involved with a large corporation that prided itself on being liberal and progressive. Some of the women were complaining of a glass ceiling, so the corporation did an inventory of resources allocated to employees above a certain level of seniority. They were horrified to discover that women were getting significantly fewer resources than men. It caused quite a commotion. The kicker however, was that a few months later someone decided to reanalyze the data, but broke the women down according to whether they had families. The upshot was that the effect disappeared: if you compared women without families to men there was no difference in terms of resource allocation. I know this is only one step above anecdotal, but IMHO it is a much bigger part of what holds a woman back (at least in comparison to the queen bee effect). Losing even just a few months out of your career (and the time you are then playing catch-up) is enough to produce an apparent glass ceiling.

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I dont see how that has much to do with teh topic at hand though, I think the OP was refering to things on a much more personal interaction level than anything else.

[guids]

I also think, that perhaps if women are able to get rid of any "competion" whether it be perceived or actual, they feel that the attention they garner for being one of the few women in the office could be enough to insure job security?