Women in the workplace

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’d make a WAG that this “catty” and “naggy” and “bitchy” behavior has a lot to do with the particular stresses of the administrative assistant role. It has a nasty tendency to be a position in which the level of stress and demands are in completely inverse proportion to the level of authority and in which prestige and pay for the work done are not nearly as high as they ought to be.

There’s also a weird pecking order in a lot of companies. The administrative staff meeting becomes a big bitchfest because that’s the only way the real problems the AAs face can ever get addressed – they vent in the meeting to the office manager or head of administrative services. The things that they carp about the loudest and with the most emphasis get taken by that office manager to the powers that be. It’s the only acceptable way of getting issues moved up the office food chain in dysfunctional work atmospheres.

22

After some 25 years in the workplace, I have to agree with the OP. The job I’m in now I work all by myself. There are other women in the facility (we have, I think, three male staff members, plus the two nephrologists making their rounds, one of which is also the medical director) but I rarely have need to interact with any of them. This is why, despite the many bad things about my job, I don’t intend to leave any time soon.

23

There’s an old saying:

If you can’t find the bitch, you’re the bitch.
[sub]Please. Don’t. Hurt. Me. [/sub]

24

Sorry, Ladies,
I have to go with Someone Else on that one. Worked in a few office places and one factory, predominantly women in the team, and the dividing into clicques and constant gossiping, the secretive laughter and judgement on looks (more so than any man would judge you), is just driving me nuts.
I’m a woman myself, yes, but still…
Working with people like thta really makes me see why some men have such a low opinion of the Fair Sex…
the main topics of women, as a group, would be:

-boyfriends/fiancees/husbands
-kids
-house
-soaps/tv in general, especially reality TV (Big Brother and all related muck)
-looks of other women

ugh.
shallow.
And I hate to say it.

25

Not all women are catty and bitch, and have nothing of consequence to say. Here are my observation:

There are many types of women out there, but the kind you describe are the worst. My sense is that they have been socialized to believe they must be this kind of woman or face loss of face or rejection. They do tend to cloisture together and reaffirm each other and their beliefs via gossip and other shallow behaviors. Few of us like to be societal mavericks and need to belong to a group. This behavior tends to reinforce their place in the group. I believe this behavior is based in fear. It is unfortunate and sad. But it gets reinforced everywhere, and even by men in many instances. I think women of this ilk behave this way because that is what it means to them to be a woman, even if in their hearts they may not believe it.

That said, there are many other women who fall on every point of the spectrum. My friends and I - and those who I interact with most at work - tend to cloister in the area of being smart, assertive women who don’t like those kind of women at all, and frankly like men on the whole much better. However, almost to a woman we have had difficulties with men, because - while we are not the “typical” female that men tend to resent (ie - the kind that engages in the behavior discussed above) - we have found we intimidate men. It is not a comfortable web to be trapped in.
None of us will change our natures or our behavior in order to be less “intimidating”, but finding that elusive male in the crowd who says he is turned-off by the traditional female and yet not equally turned-off by the more self-assured female is difficult.

Ultimately, both men and women have a responsibility to consider the realities of the other. Of course, we all have our preferences and beliefs. I personally strongly believe that neither gender has it easier than the other. And in a perfect world we would both consider the entire spectrum of belief and behavior that exists amonst all of us and be open to understanding.

26

At my first/previous job I had the “privilege” of having two people subordinate to me. Both were female. They spent the entire bitching about men (especially their husbands) and gossiping about other people (especially other female coworkers). Needless to say, the experience left quite an impression on me. At my current job I work entirely with men, with the exception of one woman. She’s O.K. But then again, she doesn’t work with other women, so maybe that’s why she doesn’t spend every waking hour bitching and moaning? Not sure, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.

So needless to say, I much prefer to work with men.

27

I suspect that if most administrative assistant jobs were populated by men rather than women, a different tune would be sung here.

Low-level jobs where there is a lot of responsibility with little authority are frustrating. If any part of your job relies on getting information/assistance from someone else in a timely manner, and you don’t have any authority at all over that someone else (which means they can choose to ignore you if they like, thus making you look bad when the work isn’t done on time), that’s a formula for a bitchfest right there. If you work in an office where there are large numbers of low-level, low-paid support staff, watch out. Frustration can lead to the catty horrible behavior mentioned.

Bosses who 1) don’t support their personnel when they are having problems with other personnel, and 2) allow this type of behavior to take root and flourish are idiots. Just like cockroaches, it’s just about impossible to get rid of once you have it.

Case in point: when we had a staff meeting here recently, our office manager actually thanked us for being nice to each other and acting like professionals (our staff here consists mostly of admin-types and IT)! Why? She’d recently been asked by another department to assist in hiring a new office manager for that department. They wanted her help because they wanted to find someone who could deal with their working environment, which had deteriorated to the point that not only were the staff nasty to each other, they had started being nasty to the faculty, who they are hired to help. Nasty, as in shouting and name calling at times. This stuff had apparently going on for quite some time and nothing they had tried had worked to improve the situation - they’d had something like 4 office managers in 5 years.

Heaven help whoever is unlucky enough to have to deal with that, and shame on whoever didn’t nip it in the bud.

28

MY experience has been that us guys in the workplace are at least three times the gossips that the women are…

29

D_Odds,

I will concede that a LOT of women tend to be bitchy and catty in the workplace. And my observations may be a bit skewed - corporate law firms are notorious for having a large percentage of good ol’ boys and very very few women in the upper ranks. In general, since I normally work directly with the attorneys, I tend to notice how they act more than how their secretaries behave.

However, even in the upper ranks, I’ve noticed that the female partners here are very professional and rarely catty. The new female attorneys, however, are new out of law school and frequently behave as though they are better than their secretaries and other female non-attorneys. I’ve always found that extremely offensive. First of all because while I’m not an attorney, I do have a masters, and speak 7 languages. Secondly, I don’t think that any amount of education will make someone smart - it depends upon the aptitude and willingness to learn of the individual. I don’t WANT a law degree - associates work almost as many hours as hospital residents at times. But I digress. This snotty attitude is something that you just don’t see in the fresh-out-of-law school male attorneys. So in that respect, you’re right.

However, many of the older men who work here are given to throwing tantrums. I think it may be because they remember the days when their secretaries picked up their dry cleaning and made them coffee. I’m not really sure. I just know that many of the 40+ men here are extremely difficult and have to be led by the hand like children.

So, I give - I think I made a blanket statement because you tend to remember a 350 pound grown man screaming at his secretary because she was unable to GUARANTEE him that a playoff game would be played two weeks hence, then calling her a dumbass in front of another (male) attorney, who heartily agreed. Asking someone to guarantee a Cardinals playoff game is like asking someone to guarantee you that it won’t rain tomorrow.

Ahh, I hate being wrong… It hurts my ego. Ouch.

30

Well, in all fairness, the main topics for us working men are:
-Women (as sex objects)
-sports
-booze
-Looks of women
-money

31

elfje, why is discussing SOs and children shallow? And while I think it’s inappropriate to discuss other women’s appearances at work, TV shows and house repairs are safe topics. You’re not likely to cause an argument or annoy someone too much by talking about what color to paint your living room. Although I discuss politics, religion, and other big issues with my friends, I’m not going to get into a political debate at work.

I’m not saying these are scintillating topics, but one shouldn’t look for scintillating conversation at work, either.

32

I work in a field where the ratio of women to men is at least ten to one and I am the token male staff member during the week. We have a few other male staff but they work nights and on the weekend.

Besides being the token male, the women I work with are all much older than me and all are now grandmothers.

We all have a low tolerance for whining and bitching and the ladies tell some jokes that would make a sailor blush.

We do fight constantly about who’s kids (mine) or grand-kids (theirs) are the cutest… :slight_smile:

Personally, I would rather talk about kids, our SO’s, and family related issues than women, cars, and sex. The other guys I work with are pretty much the same as me so we all get along great, although we’re all a little more fanatical when it comes to following sports.

33

I’ve worked professionally in one female-majority setting (social work) and one male-majority setting (IT) and they each have their gendered styles of being annoying cesspools of intrigue to work in.

Female: way too many open-warfare schisms between women who didn’t get along, with petty snips and infantile behaviors; personality issues getting in the way of professional issues.

Male: surrepticious internecine secret in-group formations and under-the-table decision-making and machiavellian scheming; allegiance issues getting in the way of professional issues.

Actually the male stuff is all about personality, too, but it gets wrapped in this in-group layer. Instead of going after their enemies, the guys would compete to form allegiance groups of compadres and then their allegiance group would go after the other guy’s allegiance group.

Me, I just work here. I’m damn good at what I do and I don’t talk to anyone about anything except work-related stuff. I’m not getting paid enough to pretend that we’re in proximity because we chose each other as friends.

34

Well said AHunter3!

And good sound advice on just working.

I actually do the same but I accidentally overhear conversations from time to time… hence, this post.

35

Female manager checking in: My department (the one I supervise) is about 75% women. These are writers and graphic artist, so generally the topics of conversation tend toward films, books, art, and current events. The bitchiest, whiniest member of my staff is a straight male. The gay male barely registers on the “bitch” factor (although we can rank him at the top of the drama queen scale).

When I worked at BMW, it was 2,000 men and me. I couldn’t wait to get out of there because I just didn’t think I could handle one more inane conversation about football. Not that I dislike football – I happen to be a Browns fan. I just refused to participate in the pissing contests. Here’s an example of a conversation at that workplace, where I was one of two females:

Boy#1: My quarterback is better than your quarterback.
Boy#2: No, no, your quarterback is a pussy. My quarterback kicks ass.
Boy#3: Well, both your quarterbacks suck. Mine wins more games than either of yours.

Betting pool begins. The winner – whosever quarterback gained the most yards on Sunday – had to make the loser wear his team’s hat for the day. The horror! Wearing your enemy team’s logo on your head.

After two full football seasons of me ignoring these intelligent exchanges… one of 'em finally turned to me and said, “Dogzilla, you’re not much of a football fan are you?”

I whipped around and just went off on him. “No, actually I love football. I love boxing. I love hockey. I just can’t stand to discuss sports with morons. You guys have no idea how to hold an intelligent argument. You wanna talk about the special teams’ strategies? How ‘bout that bad call in the last minute of the 4th quarter that was clearly not pass interference? Do I think your crappy team should have gone for the 2-point conversion, instead of having to punt? Now that might make an interesting debate. But all you idiots do is argue about who’s quarterback looks better. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’d all been studying your quarterbacks’ asses a little too carefully and maybe… just maybe, you might have little crushes on those guys…”

That shut 'em up. And I doubt they were sad to see me leave, when I finally did.

Sorry this is so long, but I want to echo that people’s behavior in the workplace can be directly related to the type of work/position they’re in. I find at this company, which is 80% female all the way up to the Board of Directors, the employees in the processing and support positions tend to bitch and whine more than those in professional positions. For one, they sometimes have less education, or less professional experience. Another reason might be the frustration of being a perfectly intelligent individual who is treated like garbage simply because one chooses to work the phones.

36

I worked in an office where it was mostly women and we were extremely supportive of each other. We talked mostly about how to do our jobs better, shared things about our lives, and art & music. I’m currently in an environment where some of the men generally are not direct or action-oriented, and avoid conflict whenever possible, even if it means that issues can be avoided. I hear both men and women in my office gossiping and complaining. The bottom line is we are all human and there are just some things that we can’t categorize by gender. But I fall victim to desperately wanting to categorize, as I’ve thought many times, “Maybe I should look for another job, where women are the majority.” There’s not guarantee that it will be nirvana, because I think the way people conduct themselves in the workplace depends mostly on the environment and to some degree the attitude and competence of management.

Also, as a woman, I don’t appreciate elfje’s assumption that her experience mirrors the experience of all other women:

****the main topics of women, as a group, would be:

-boyfriends/fiancees/husbands
-kids
-house
-soaps/tv in general, especially reality TV (Big Brother and all related muck)
-looks of other women******

I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with these topics, but they don’t reflect the discussions all woman. Maybe that is your experience because you are gravitating to women whose interests are similar to yours.

And msmith537…I don’t think every man would agree with you, either.