It’s definitely true for my brother’s family, although that was allegedly her decision - she said she wanted to be a SAHM. If it’s not everything she thought it would be and more, why not take it up with my brother, rather than taking it out on someone who has squat to do with it? My having a kid or driving a mini-van or whatever won’t make her situation any better.
I don’t find women any more difficult to work with than men. Some people are assholes and they suck to work with.
I am a women that doesn’t play games; I deal directly with the individual if we have a problem. Of course sometimes this means I have to let my boss know that he may be hearing about the incident. I like to let my boss know when someone may be coming to talk to him about me and my inability to play nice (read: kowtow to someone’s expectations of how I should behave when they fuck up).
I work/ed with a couple of men who pout like little babies and hold grudges with their co-workers for years. They still sabotage each other, even though they no longer work in the same section. I work with men who have come crying (literally) to the boss about some perceived injustice or disagreement rather than first taking it up with the person they have the problem with.
I’ve worked with women who were complete back-stabbing bitches. I also currently work with three of the best female co-workers anyone could hope to have (we just added another woman to the section and she seems great as well, but she’s new so we’ll have to reserve judgment).
I currently work with nine pretty great people plus a most excellent male boss; of those 10 people, two of the men are the most likely to exhibit the kind of behavior that others have mentioned as being things they dislike about female co-workers.
I also get some resentment for having a so-called “better” lifestyle (or rather, “different”). I can spend money on nicer vacations. Of course, I have an 18-year-old beater of a car, but I have nicer vacations. Some of my bitchy co-workers (with their new cars) seemed to resent my happy-go-lucky vacations. I don’t resent their cars; why do they resent my vacations?
It’s because that’s what they do. It doesn’t matter that they’ve got it good in their own way, of that I have my share of things that could be better (like a beater car). It’s all about bitching about anyone about anything, just to pass the time.
And if you like TV show X and they like TV show Y, you are bad. If you like music genre A and they prefer music genre B, another mark against you. If you like to read books more than they do (or different kinds of books), then you obviously deserve whatever you get.
There’s more to it than that, of course, and bitchiness and pettiness and not only caused by reading the “wrong” books or having the “wrong” hobbies. But it can sometimes be used as an excuse, I think.
I’ve had both kinds of bosses too, male and female. Part of the problem is that we (and they) are trained and educated so that we can do the job, but we don’t know how to deal with each other.
HR people are supposedly trained in people management, but when it comes to applying it, they’re up against it – they have to balance the needs of the people coming to them with problems with what management wants or what the company needs.
If they haven’t had training in workplace behavior, they take everything personally. They don’t see things as normal workplace dynamics. Our jobs have become our lives, and I think we’d be better off if we could separate the two. Our bosses and co-workers are not our family, and if we expect the same kind of treatment and consideration at work that we get at home, we’ll be disappointed.
I worked in a predominately female lab for five years. The primary investigator (the boss) was a woman. Almost all the grad students were women. And we got along pretty much ok.
Sure, there were occassional personality clashes. And there was one girl that we all hated (she was of the all-my-friends-are-guys variety…a kind of person who thinks she’s better than other women because she has no problem going down on a man in the confocal microscope room…but I digress…) Any problems I had were the result of individual personality issues, like extreme negativity, lack of mind-to-mouth censorship, laziness, dishonesty, etc. Not anything I would attribute to women in general. And despite these things, I was friends with pretty much everyone I worked with.
I now work in a predominately male environment. The atmosphere is different-- jokes are bawdier, teasing is much more frequent and potentially offensive, more chest-thumping and competitiveness–but again I get along with most everyone I work with. There is one person that everyone hates, and once again it’s a woman. I feel guilty for joining in on the collective dislike, and I’m constantly questioning myself whether it’s because she’s a woman. Or, if I would be more lenient on her if she were a guy. I still don’t know. I do think the other employees in the lab are kinda sexist and don’t appreciate her leadership style because it’s coming from a woman. So that’s why I’m disturbed by the fact that I also don’t like her, because I’d like to think I’m not suffering from internalized oppression or self-hatred.
I also feel weird because the guys I work with are always praising my “coolness”, as if they were expecting me to be, I dunno, “uncool”. It makes me wonder if they’ve been burnt by women coworkers in the past and they’re relieved that I’m “different”. Well, I don’t want to be “different”. I don’t want them to see me as “one of the guys”, just as I don’t want them to see me as “just as good as a white person”. I don’t think being a woman is incompatible with being a pleasure to work with.
This thread makes me uncomfortable, I have to admit. I guess someone has to say it so it might as well be me: Why do generalizations come so much easier when we’re talking about gender stuff versus race, nationality, sexuality, political persuasion, etc? If “whites” had been replaced with “women” in the OP, would people feel so comfortable if I and other Dopers had jumped on the bandwagon? I don’t think so. I mean, I do believe that women and men operate in different ways. But the OP’s sample size of three is hardly valid enough for any kind of generalization. I’m kind of shocked that only one person (mhendo) was bold enough to say something about it.
I work in a mostly female office, and have many of the same problems. The main thing I notice is that while everyone is nice, and friendly, and civil, when one or the other is out of earshot, it’s “You know, they all hate her. Wish she’d butt out, etc.”
My latest issue was when my cow-orker who drives me up a tree (and I exhibit LARGE quantities of restraint to keep from telling what I actually think) told me yesterday I was acting like our manager - who I know for a fact that the cow-orker hates. Regardless of the joking tone…I don’t think she was joking. It’s likely to get ugly soon.
Grrrrr. Add to this management who doesn’t really understand what we do, and things are, well, stressful.
I’m in here to show solidarity with my fellow women who are trying to fight against the tide of people who are still so damn threatened by women in the workplace. There’s no point in trying to change those ignorant, frightened peoples’ minds.
I completely disagree with everyone who says that women are a pain to work with. That has not been my experience at all. My suggestion is that you look at people as individuals instead of as representatives of a group you have preconceived notions about.
You women who hate other women are your own worst enemies. Here’s a little clue to you: it doesn’t make the menfolks like you more than the other women. But it does reinforce their idea that women are a bunch of catty backstabbers who can’t stand each other. I mean, isn’t that what you just told them? Aren’t you the perfect example of what you’re decrying?
I enjoy working with women, men, anybody who is professional. That’s what matters.
But guys do this too. I’ve heard guys be cordial and polite in front of their enemies, and then trash-talk–sometimes violently–about them behind their backs. I think this is workplace behavior rather than “women workplace” behavior.
You know what? I’ve done the same thing. Unpopular-Woman-in-my-Lab conveys information to me in a rude way but I don’t say anything to her about it. I might even thank her with a smile. Once she leaves the room, I might say to anyone who’s listening, “Was it just me or was she rude?” Or I might even say, “You know what? She gets on my nerves sometimes.” I don’t think this is the “evil” woman coming out in me, although I admit it isn’t exactly great behavior.
Nor are guys less likely to gossip. All the juicy dish in my workplace comes from the guys–not the girls.
I know there are people here who have experienced both male-heavy and women-heavy workplaces, but my WAG is that it’s not the majority of posters here (since the fields, rather than the workplaces, we choose often tend to lean one way or the other). So I’m wondering just how people can be so confident that they aren’t generalizing based on limited experiences.
Yes. Unless the OP is admitting to being a raging bitch herself, exactly half of her sample does not behave in the manner she so happily attributes to “women.”
A question for the OP: if your boss is so fucking great, why isn’t he dealing with the lying backstabbers? Have you talked to him about the problems or do you just bitch about the other two to the “cool” co-worker? Maybe some self-examination is in order. Or maybe you should have the wherewithal to confront them about their nasty behavior instead of [gasp] complaining about them behind their backs.
On preview, I see that I agree with everything monstro and bluethree have said.
A few of the guys in my workplace are right out of control. There are two in particular who seem out to ruin lives.
I also sincerely hope that none of the people in this thread who think negative generalizations are “useful” are in a hiring position.
I learned this as early as fifth grade-in junior high/high school, there is NOTHING worse than the female clique. The guys will insult you outright. But the girls will do the little whisper behind your back when you’re standing right there…but they WANT you to hear them. I never know how to respond, and even when I have, they just start giggling, “Oh, we weren’t talking about YOU.”
Yuck yuck yuck.
I like working with engineer types (which in my definition includes mechanics, bricklayers, etc).
Engineer types are too busy trying to Get Things Done to do the whole go behind someone’s back thing. And if they tell you “I like your ass” it’s in the same tone of voice they’d use for “I like your car”.
Anybody else sucks. Specially people in hiring positions who insist on thinking of me as a “female” rather than an “engineer”. Are they going to be paying for my cunt?
The worst experience I’ve ever had at work involved a cabal of men using all kinds of dirty tricks and gossip and other “typically female” bullshit to not only get me fired but damage my life. It was unreal, and really, really bad.
But I was defended and protected by both men and women.
I’ve had the unfortunate experience of being the target of a really nasty woman who was trying to get me fired, too (totally different job many years later). Not as bad as the first, but still, WTF???
Again, I was defended and protected by both men and women.
I think the thing that the icky people had in common was a driving sense of impotent rage/self-hate and no self-esteem at all. And the thing that the Glorious Right-Thinking Angels 
that protected/defended me had in common was a strong sense of ethics/morals and self-esteem.
I’ve seen it in both men and women, and I can’t stand to work with that type, regardless of sex.
Apparently you didn’t pay the least attention to all the previous warnings, Kel. Your habit of posting crap-for-shock has worn beyond thin. You can’t say you weren’t warned, Kel, explicitly and repeatedly.
TVeblen
Pit mod
I’ve come across this notion fairly frequently on the boards but have yet to experience it. Admittedly, I’m a college freshman and the (part-time) job I have now is the only real job I’ve ever had. I’ve been working since September, all of my superiors are female and they’ve been consistently professional and amiable.
I’ve had problems working with both of the genders at various times.
With female coworkers, largely as others have described. Indirect, behind-your-back stuff. Most often they seemed to have it in for each other rather than for me, but there have been exceptions. I’ll never forget trying to get through clinical rotation as a male LPN student on the postpartum ward (ack!).
With male coworkers…
• High priorities put on totally tangential stuff that has nothing to do with the quality of work, and the prioritization of which is never discussed (your ability to just “get it” seems to be part of what is so highly valued). Ranging from “does slam parts shut with a resonant ‘bang’ and bellows a lot during performance of tasks” when I was working as a “roughneck” on an oil rig in Colorado to “discusses and compares the prospects of the Jets and the Giants and the Nets and the Pistons and the Knicks in an adversarial manner with each other and the postman” at my current job where I"m a FileMaker geek.
• Males who have been my direct supervisors have, far more often than female direct supervisors, bitten my head off for not doing exactly as they think they would’ve done if my job had been their job, and have attributed my not doing so to laziness, deliberate dereliction of my duties, or incompetence, and done so angrily and dismissively.
• Whereas female coworkers who did not warm up to me as a person would mostly tune me out and ignore me, male coworkers who did not warm up to me have often seemed to be as deliberately abrasive and contemptuously unpleasant as possible.
I’ve worked with men and women my whole life and I honestly think this is complete bullshit. I’ve known co-workers who claimed this and it was obviously bullshit - they simply ignored all data points that disagreed with this stereotype. Male co-workers who lied and connived were forgotten; female co-workers who were forthright and honest were overlooked.
It’s “white van on the corner” perception; whatever supports the stereotype is remembered, whatever does not is forgotten.
Eggs-actly!
Can we all agree that some men are assholes and some women are complete bitches, and that some men and women are wonderful people to work with?
A difficult co-worker is a difficult co-worker whether they’re male or female. The sex doesn’t–shouldn’t–matter.
I have worked in “pink-collar ghettos” all of my career, and I have to say I haven’t experienced too much female-specific bitchery or backstabbing. Assholism, I’ve noticed, is an equal-opportunity disease.
HOWEVER:
Men and women have different styles of communicating in the office, and I’m putting that politely. Less politely: the women I’ve worked with tend to chatter, nonstop, all day, every day, about every single thing that pops into their heads. It’s been largely responsible for my decline into insanity. The women around me never, ever shut up, not ever, and I don’t see why the company invests in cubicle walls, since they’re just yelled through. The place would be far quieter if there were no cubicles.
Had to get that off my chest. In every other aspect, women are absolutely wonderful creatures, I’m sure.