Recently there's been much media coverage about women bullying each other at work. ABC News, the New York Times and the Globe and Mail have all done stories although, interestingly enough, none of them focus solely on the kind of female bossiness that Meryl Streep handed out to Anne Hathaway in 'The Devil Wears Prada'. Apparently, woman are undermining each other through reputation smearing, manipulation, threats, whispering campaigns, negative gossip, yelling and screaming and ostracizing each other from the office group.
Verbal Psychological Emotional Bullying
Diane Rogers of British Columbia's 'The Bully Within', an activist group comprising professionals, cites one horror story of a female boss harassing an underling with cancer for not tying up loose ends before she took sick leave to have treatments.
The University of New Brunswick's Marilyn Noble, a researcher into workplace bullying, told the Globe and Mail that "Women tend to use relational aggression. It's verbal psychological emotional bullying - it's covert, it's harder to pin down and to prove". Indeed, many bullies pretend to be their victim's friend while gossiping about her behind her back. Unfortunately, the all-unknowing victim giver her tormentor the ammunition.
Competing with Our Sisters
Michelle Cirocco of Televerde Corporation theorized in a May 9 interview with the New York Times' Mickey Meece, that such bullying behavior is part of a pattern that forms during a woman's early life. "
We're competing with our sisters for dad's attention, or for our brother's attention then we go on in school and we're competing for our teacher's attention. We're competing to be on the sports team or the cheer squad." What she doesn't add is that girls compete with each other to be the best friend of the most popular girl and to get the hottest boy. Life is one big competition.
Supposedly, the practice of women bullying each other is more prevalent now because of the recession and the general desperation to keep one's job. Says Nan Mooney, author of I Can't Believe She Did That: Why women betray other women at work, "a lot of times we're in a position where we can take it out on other women and we can't take it out on our male boss or even male underling who may become our boss."
Bullies Thrive in the Corporate World
However, all this is not new. University of North Carolina's Dr Penelope W Brunner and Siena College's Dr Melinda L Costello were writing about it on their website worktrauma.org back in spring of 2003. They explain that bullies thrive in the corporate world because it's militaristic and male-dominated.
Women who want to get ahead feel that they must demonstrate that they can act like their male colleagues. They aren't interested in embracing their feminine characteristics because they feel these are detrimental to their success. It must upset those members of the women's movement who believed that as women gained powerful positions they would soften the workforce.
Bunker Mentality of Contemporary Corporate Life
Brunner and Costello quote a 1996 study "organizational power hierarchies, competitive work climates, and the bunker mentality of contemporary corporate life all provide a hospitable environment for the toxin of disrespect, and even induce it, from bosses who would otherwise be just."
Nan Moody makes excuses for what's going on, " There are glass ceilings that are slightly porous but still exist. Women are dealing with issues of taking care of families, maternity leaves. Trying to balance all these things creates a great deal of tension. I wish we could think more of that sensibility that we are in this together and it doesn't necessarily help you to hurt other women."
The stress associated with keeping one's job during the recession is causing women to bully each other at work. The conditions prevalent in the militaristic corporate world aggravate the problem. The women's movement hoped that, as women climbed the corporate ladder, they would soften the working environment for their sisters. No chance.
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