I don’t know if this is just a fluke on my part or what.
There’s not a whole lot of women that work at my place of employment. I’d say the women are out numbered 6 to 1. And of those women, not all of them are what most would consider “hot”.
Here’s how the situation usually pans out it least in my division. We’ll have one who is head and shoulders more attractive than the other girls she works with. Everyone gets along fine. Now a new girl get’s introduced to the mix. This girl is on the same level of hotness as the other girl.
Fast forward just a few weeks later and said girls are at each others throats.
Now if this were just an isolated incident, I wouldn’t be posting this, but the fact is, I’ve seen this scenario played out time and time again. Maybe not the exact same scenario but something very similar to it.
As far as I can tell, to hot women can’t work in the same vicinity with out drama going on.
Is this just a fluke on my part or has anybody else noticed this?
That, and probably a certain amount of self-selection. Some of what goes into being “hot” is a matter of effort, not genetics; and the two women who are “hottest” are therefore likely to be the two women who care the most about looking the best. Especially given that we’re talking about work, not a date or party.
I agree with Der Trihs. I think it is also worth pointing out that hot women seem persistently unaware that there is a threshold of hotness beyond which we can’t tell who is hotter. In many cases, the conflict is entirely unnecessary.
I am not sure why this is news to you. Women fight really dirty - especially attractive ones that are fighting for social position. It is just what they do. The myth of the kind and egalitarian female society is just that and a laughable idea on its face. Reality shows and even politics exploit that simple fact to make it their business model.
I have two daughters and love them more than anything in the world but it is all I can do to keep them from killing each other. Their friends are even worse. I wasn’t 10 minutes into my first all girls birthday party when the 6 year olds started forming their own little gangs and faking injuries for attention. There wasn’t any real problem but a couple of them really hated the idea that they weren’t the personal star of the show even for a few minutes.
Boys and men are aggressive to one another too of course but there is a huge difference. Younger males can establish dominance early through physical aggression but that strategy doesn’t work in the long-term. True power for males means that you can use intellect, strategic tactics and kindness rather than direct aggression as a means to influence people and make them respect you. Anyone that uses bullying tactics or any form of abuse is viewed as paradoxically weak once you get past a certain point in the male social hierarchy. Women do not have that same pressure and some misinterpret extreme competitiveness or abuse as a sign of strength even though it isn’t seen that way by others.
One way of thinking about this phenomenon is to consider why a bee hive is happy with one queen, but there’s a fight to the death or the running away when there are two queens.
So, yeah, it’s a competition. And they’ve probably become conditioned to using their charms to manipulate the males and intimidate the females they come in contact with. And since this works for them, they let their negotiating, compromising, and other social skills sort of atrophy. It’s not necessarily deliberate although it can be.
This sort of thing can be fun to observe as long as you do NOT get involved. Or, if you’re an attractive guy, you can play them against each other (but that’s dangerous). The situation might make a good study for a psych or sociology major. It could be tedious, though, for an HR person who has to keep a straight face when the main antagonists are complaining to HR because the other one is prettier/hotter than me, but that’s not the reason they’re telling.
I’ve heard it described as Crab Mentality, likening the situation to a bunch of crabs in a barrel. Whenever a single crab tries to get out of the barrel, others pull it down so in the end, nobody gets out.
What’s often overlooked in this comparision is that a barrel is not a natural place for a crab to be.
(By which I mean: there are usually fewer positions in a company available to women, and the work they do is typically undervalued. With work and payment being relatively more scarce, there’s going to be a fuckton more competition.)
Strangely, I’ve never really noticed this alleged phenomenon. In my experience the likelihood of two women being in conflict is the same irrespective of how attractive they are.
In this case, it sounds like jealousy, but it probably varies depending on the situation. I like the comparison MostlyClueless made - it could be related to limited potential for promotion. Or, it could be strictly based on looks, as has also been suggested.
Not all women are like this. I work with many women who are good looking, myself probably included, and I haven’t run in to this sort of competition. In fact, most of the women I work with are more likely to help each other reach their career goals than anything else. We’re all supportive of each other, mostly because we all know it’s more difficult for women in our industry from a broad perspective. It also relates to the entire structure of the company I work for too - women get a LOT of support if they ask for it, from both men and women.
However, the previous company I worked for clearly saw women as assistants or secretaries, unlikely to hold a higher level position. Those that did hold higher positions were treated differently, almost second class - they brought the snacks for meetings, made sure there was coffee, etc. There was a lot of competition between women there - jealousy and underhandedness. It was disgusting. I lasted 18 months and left after being told my application for education funding was declined despite it directly relating to my job (within policy) and a male coworker having received similar funding a year before.
So, YMMV and it probably relates to a broader issue within the company you work for.
Woman who’s a type A personality and considered attractive weighing in on this here. They’re going to take away my feminist card for saying so, but I think Urbanredneck is correct: type A personalities + “queen bee”. (If you are a leader, some people will see you as a “queen bee”, even if you have no desire to take over the world.)
Women fight way dirtier than men. Also, they carry way more grudges. They sulk and pout and spread rumours and all kinds of nasty underhanded stuff. It does not help to not play the game; they will gleefully play it without you.
In my experience, male bosses are better at shutting this down than female bosses, who feel they have to hear everyone out. YMMV, of course.
Because, really, they like each other, kinda like junior high.
Nah, queen bee cage fight. I’ve seen it a number of times, and had the sorry case of having to be the boss of a such a situation - irresolvable except to separate their duties as much as possible.
Never seen it. Not sure why there would be competition about hotness in a place of business, which has nothing to do with the value of one’s looks. It’s not clear if by ‘‘at each others’ throats’’ you mean they are struggling for professional success or social status. If you mean social status, than the last time I saw something like that was high school.
You’d be surprised how many women – and men, too – devolve to high school (or junior high!) behavior in the workplace.
Age doesn’t matter. “Hotness” doesn’t matter. In my entire working life thus far social/professional status fuels the competition to be #1.
Many women, as others have already said, tend to fight dirty. They don’t think twice of resorting to 8th grade tactics to get what they want. The Real Housewives franchise on Bravo made a brand of these type of women.
If you’re already at the top there’s no need to fight.
May men, from what I’ve seen, tend to talk smack about each other and may behave similar as women but they’re not quite as blatant about it, at least from what I’ve witnessed.
