I tend not to put too much stock in the most emailed articles from most mainstream news sources; typically it's the fluff, the cute animals and oddities (not that there's anything inherently wrong with a little junk news). Case in point: the BBC's #1 most popular story of the moment: "60-foot penis painted on roof." Awesome.
The New York Times audience seems to tend toward sharing slightly more substantive articles, like the one written by an American expat loving life in the Dutch social welfare state , featuring in last week's Times Magazine (incidentally, worth checking out as feminist food for thought, if only to swoon at the provisions of the Dutch government's universal health care: ~$400 covers a family of 4, no copays, and dental included, day care is covered to the tune of $14,000/child annually, and legal barriers for midwives are lifted -- homebirth is a longstanding tradition).
But getting back to promoted articles: I looked at the most emailed articles on the NYT homepage this morning, hoping readers would be pointing to an equally engrossing read, and here's what I get:
Backlash: Women Bullying Women at Work
Anytime a writer invokes Susan Faludi in the title of an article that points to women as the culprits of our own oppression, you know you're in for a treat. Get this: there's more office bullying during tough times, and some of those bullies are women.
It’s probably no surprise that most of these bullies are men, as a survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute, an advocacy group, makes clear. But a good 40 percent of bullies are women. And at least the male bullies take an egalitarian approach, mowing down men and women pretty much in equal measure. The women appear to prefer their own kind, choosing other women as targets more than 70 percent of the time.
In the name of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, what is going on here?
Just the mention of women treating other women badly on the job seemingly shakes the women’s movement to its core.
It is what Peggy Klaus, an executive coach in Berkeley, Calif., has called “the pink elephant” in the room. How can women break through the glass ceiling if they are ducking verbal blows from other women in cubicles, hallways and conference rooms?
Women don’t like to talk about it because it is “so antithetical to the way that we are supposed to behave to other women,” Ms. Klaus said. “We are supposed to be the nurturers and the supporters.”
So let's recap: you've got your essentialist notions of the masculine and feminine (men=aggressive, women=nurturers), and your basic feminist name dropping/attempted movement discrediting. It would be comical if so many people weren't forwarding it, some of whom probably swallowed these gender stereotypes whole.
Author Mickey Meece fails to consider how stereotypes feed discrimination in the workplace, though for an instant he seems like he's on the right track. He speculates about structural inequities that could be at work and hits upon the lack of women at the top (to say nothing of the pay gap) before one moment of clarity, with the help of Catalyst research:
Leadership specialists wonder, are women being “overly aggressive” because there are too few opportunities for advancement? Or is it stereotyping and women are only perceived as being overly aggressive? Is there a double standard at work?
Research on gender stereotyping from Catalyst suggests that no matter how women choose to lead, they are perceived as “never just right.” What’s more, the group found, women must work twice as hard as men to achieve the same level of recognition and prove they can lead.
The article minimizes the gendered hurdles that women face outside the realm of office politics and instead puts the onus on us to "hug it out," with researchers lamenting the fact that women won't operate purely based on their shared identity as women, rather than as independent, ambitious, people . And since when is it news that women are competitive and strive to excel as individuals? Now I'm all for solidarity and cooperation among women and underrepresented communities. But the reality is that women are pitted against one another from the womb by powerful media messaging from those who stand to benefit from a divide and conquer strategy. And based on the sources Meece has chosen, he seems pretty transparently bent on disregarding feminist social critiques and instead making the case that nothing stands in women's way but women themselves:
“As we get into the corporate world,” Ms. Cirocco added, “we’re taught or we’re led to believe that we don’t get ahead because of men. But, we really don’t get ahead because of ourselves. Instead of building each other up and showcasing each other, we’re constantly tearing each other down.”
Conclusion: women bear responsibility for our upward mobility, end of story. Easy to point fingers, if you're not owning your responsiblity as someone with the priviledge and platform to be heard and amplified by readers across the country. The most popular stories do provide some interesting insight into an audience and how narrow viewpoints seep into the discourse on equality.
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it is interesting, so i can see why it was emailed so much. and it appears to be backed by facts. one of the most emailed articles from 3 years ago was insanely offensive, but got so big the author was on tv shows and published a book about it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/25love.html?ex=1152331200&en=debac329d198da05&ei=5087%250A
Sounds like it was a slow news day. The media are looking for any angle on the recession that they can squeeze out of it. And in the British media, whenever they're lacking material, they usually do some feminist baiting in the form of 'Has feminism gone too far?!' and 'Feminism has failed wimmin' etc.
That said, it's not news to me that women can behave appallingly towards one another in the workplace. It's happened to me twice, both to such a serious point I had to report the person to senior management. In the first case, the person was part of an all-female team who were the epitome of a high-school clique (except sadly they were women int their 30s, 40s, and 50s) and were so unpleasant and unfriendly (I would go for whole work days without being spoken to) that I left, as I could see these women had been allowed to get away with their behaviour and weren't going to change. The second time, the person also failed to rectify their behaviour, and I took a job in another department. I've now left office work altogether, more because it bores me senseless than because of any of this, but suffice to say the ridiculous immaturity of some of the people who work in offices was an incentive to get out.
Unpleasant as these experiences were, I don't take them as evidence of anything much - anti-feminists usually seize on these kinds of stories as evidence that women actually all hate each other and can never get on because they compete with each other too much. In reality, all my experience shows is that some people are dickheads and others are decent - I was just unlucky. Perhaps the fact women are still striving to prove themselves in the workplace may have something to do with why some of them act so unpleasantly. Women are encouraged to masculinise themselves and phase out 'womanly' characteristics such as empathy and nurturing in order to succeed in the high ranks of business. However, I don't see my tormentors as having that excuse - they were low-level admin staff nearing the end of their working lives. Perhaps it was bitterness, impotence or sheer malice - I'll never know. What I do know is that I'm not going to infer a non-existent social trend from it - plenty of men are tormented by their male co-workers (my boyfriend is constantly patronised, criticised and refused opportunities by his male boss), and no one bangs on about the sudden rise in male disloyalty.
I agree with most of what you said. My two best bosses ever were female and my most jelly spined, passive-aggressive, two faced supervisor was a ‘family man’. So go figure.
Another issue that I have is how the dysfunctional or toxic behaviors of men and women get labeled differently. For example, women are deemed ‘gossipy’, backstabbing, catty, etc. This implies that by comparison men are team players who are fair minded and rational, above any petty jealousies that plague their female counterparts. I know for a fact that in male dominated offices, especially non-corporate ones without all the diversity training and zero tolerance policies, men are just as competitive as women and do indeed feel envious of or threatened by the advances of others. But when they protest, they aren’t called ‘whiney’….they are assertive. Often men get downright aggressive with each other using profane language and threats of physical violence when conflicts occur. They talk shit about each other, too, and form alliances in the workplace and exclude ‘outsiders’ from their cliques. I think this is especially true in male dominated workplaces and fields and I’ve known too many men who can account for this to believe it’s just some kind of fluke (although when you highlight instances like this people are biased and more likely to believe they are the exception and not the norm like being ‘catty’ is for women). Also, ‘gay’ accusations and taunts are a common weapon amongst men for keeping each other in line or to encourage conformity. Men aren’t supposed to care about looks much less NOTICE if another co-worker is handsome (because that would make you gay, right?) but my very handsome husband had a lot of conflict at his previous job where some guy who was pissed that my husband got a private office started making ‘fag’ jokes daily and insinuating my husband was having gay sex in his office whenever the door was closed. Hmmmmm….
"Anti-feminists usually seize on these kinds of stories as evidence that women actually all hate each other and can never get on because they compete with each other too much."
Totally agree. At the same time, our culture likes to churn out the image of women as all "ya-ya sisterhood." The NY Times recently ran this warm and fuzzy article relaying how friendships among women promote longevity--with this throwaway line about men: "While many friendship studies focus on the intense relationships of women, some research shows that men can benefit, too." (Really? Could it be because all human beings are social animals, so, gasp, men are also social animals?)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9406EFD8103FF932A15757C0A96F9C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
Of course, both the phenomena of female bullying as well as female friendship are true. But we'll never see articles tsk-tsking men for engaging in workplace bullying in this, "Why are you doing this?" sort of way. And sadly, why are there so few studies on the impact of male friendships on men's health?
The article is great discussion fodder -- which is why we're discussing it now.
What I find most interesting about the article is its inadequacies.*
One inadequacy: failure to recognize that bullies bully people who are weaker or perceived to be weaker. Women (overall) have less power in the workplace than men (overall). It makes sense that women would bully other women (it's not like you bully the higher-ups!).
Another inadequacy: assumption that all women are hand-holding, kumbaya-singing nurturers.
*I don't how many other readers are forwarding and discussing the article for similar reasons.
Re: "it's not like you bully the higher-ups!"
But you can bully peers, particularly if you're part of a group of "mean girls" -- safety in bully numbers.
"Another inadequacy: assumption that all women are hand-holding, kumbaya-singing nurturers."
Uh, what? The article quoted someone saying people are surprised/don't like to talk about it because of the stereotype of women as nurturing and supportive. You seem to have misunderstood - try reading the quote again in context.
I read the original article and this posting just fine. The notion that women CAN be bullies is only surprising if you view all women as hand-holding, kumbaya-singing nurturers.
And the article is about disabusing people of that misconception. Your problem?
Er, no, the article is totally expressing that sense of surprise; it's a very pearl-clutching tone. It's about telling people how wrong women have gone, how far they've sadly wandered from their proper and most constructive roles as kumbaya-singing, hand-holding nurturers. We can't get ahead without being sweet, ladies!
Huh, I definitely got that tone out of some of the people quoted, but not out of the article itself. Well, at least we agree it's expecting some essential difference between women in the workplace and men in the workplace is silly.
Great post! I think you touch on a lot of important issues and the one in particular that I’m all over right now is the “divide and conquer” strategy that society has had against women since… well, I don’t know, the rise of patriarchy?! Women are always pitted against each other. Look at “catfights”. Why is that any different than any other fight? Also, women are always labeled as caddy or shallow because we’re suppose to be known to look at another woman and based on how good she looks or dresses or what she’s accomplished, find a way to tear her down. I don’t think that’s the way us women are naturally. I think it’s learned behavior. But the good thing is that it can be quickly unlearned. Just bringing it up to your friends in a way that’s like, “don’t hate on other women; what good does that do for us?” gets the conversation going.
As for bullying in the workplace, I find (in the field of corporate law) that there is a lot of bullying just from superiors to their staff, but it’s far less from superior to male staff. The males seem to just get less crap in general. The women are expected to do so much more as part of their every day duties and if we get overwhelmed or mess up, there’s always a “talking to”. (which incidentally is one of the reasons I’m leaving this field). Also, the women superiors in the office are aggressive because they have to be, as defense attorneys and are often seen as bitches by their male co-workers (not me, though. As “bitchy” as they seem, I still applaud the fact that they are strong, kick ass women). There’s also cross-staff bullying. One woman staff member in particular is my bully and, secure and strong as I am, continues to give me grief. I honestly don’t know what to think about that! I’m going to write her off because she once said to me something along the lines of “I’m all for equality but I hate feminazis”. Anyone who uses that word has their own issues.
Given the token representation of women in the upper levels of many organizations, it would make sense for women to compete with women. They may percieve, correctly, that the culture of the organization will only allow one of them.
At least it's published under "Business" and not "Fashion" or "Style" like so many other women-related articles are.
hmm...I didn't know that this was supposed to "shakes the women’s movement to its core". For me, it actually affirms how patriarchy pits women against women and discourages cooperation.
Women are seen as poor leaders, passive, and all sorts of other stereotypes that often hold them back from the upper levels. A lot of women feel they have to get past this by acting "like a man" instead of just being a strong female. To pull from Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy: If, to prove that you aren't the 'stereotypical female' you have to try to be 'like a man', then you are not the exception to the rule but instead are proving the rule that 'woman' is something undesirable to be. (that was paraphrasing and hopefully i got the point right)
I can't quite put my finger on it, but it makes sense to me why/how patriarchy has put women against each other instead of cooperative.
From the book: "Even if you are a woman who achieves the ultimate and becomes like a man, you will still always be like a woman. And as long as womanhood is thought of as something to escape from, something less than manhood, you will be thought less of, too."
Maybe its women trying to distance themselves from other women as part of trying to distance themselves from being seen as womanly? Perhaps women feel that if they have entered the "boys club" that another woman may disrupt her unique pass in? Since if another woman enters the scene, the women will be compared more to each other than to other men?
....all speculation!
This sort of thing does happen in the workplace. It's happened to me. It's really frustrating to be professionally respected by many of the men in a workplace, and have many of the women trying to create trouble for you.
Some women basically take the attitude of "Well it was misable for me, and now I'm going to make it miserable for you" attitude. In my opinion at least some women think the only way they can get ahead is by pushing other women down. I feel that many of these women have been coopted into reenforcing partiarchial attitudes, to cover their own butts. I'm not really sure what this says about our culture, but I'm sure it isn't good.
Two weeks ago I was leading a discussion of "Beauty and the Beast" with four 4th graders (two girls, two boys). In the version of the story we read, Beauty was the youngest of 12. She had five greedy sisters who all hated her, and six kind brothers who all loved her. The messaging starts early.
That's a good point.
I've always felt that it was unfair that the ugly sisters/step-sisters of fairy tale heroines are always twice damned: firstly they are condemned for being ugly and so for having poor marriage prospects. If they are not already so, society shunning them as a useless aberration warps them into becoming internally ugly, and they are in turn condemned for that.
It's also interesting how fairytale heroines always have a great relationship first with Daddy, and then with the subsequent male love interest. Mothers are almost always dead, their image as "pure yet tragic" forever reverently preserved, and relationships with usurping, grasping, non-virginal step-mothers are always fraught.
It's no coincidence that fairy tales are simplistic morality plays, intended to transmit social messages to children from the earliest possible age. So remember girls; sit tight, keep your legs and fingers crossed, and one day *you* could be living in a castle with Prince Charming, while everybody who was ever mean to you is forced to dance on burning coals!
Did you see in the article a quote by a woman who works on female bullying in an Arizona state prison? She explains the childhood roots of female-on-female competitiveness thusly: “We’re competing with our sisters for dad’s attention, or for our brother’s attention,” Ms. Cirocco said.
That really made my eyebrows go up. No mention of Mom (who's just another female, I take it?). And, sisters compete for their brothers' attention? Really? All girls inevitably vie for to their brothers' attention, even their younger ones? That makes no sense.
In my household, it was all the siblings competing with one another for any parent's attention, usually for mom or dad to take your side in a sibling quarrel.
Good post. You always see this sort of thing, people acting like women being mean to other women is such a bigger deal than when men do it to each other. A much less important example that I can think of is when I watch Never Mind the Buzzcocks on YouTube. On the rare occasion that there's two female guests, if one rags on the other, the comment section is filled with "OH MY GOD SHE SUCH A BITCH" "CATFIGHT LOL" etc. Obviously, the male guests insult and make jokes at each other's expense all the time, but of course that's just hilarious. Because as we all know, men are funny and comedic and awesome, whereas women are all out to get each other and rip one another to shreds, and any joke made is part of a secret bitchy plot to make herself seem better because we're all just SO insecure. JEEZ, YOU WHINY GIRLS, IT'S HARDLY ANY WONDER YOU'RE OPPRESSED - IT'S ALL YOUR OWN FAULT!
Exactly; men are the default gender, but women who express any normal human behaviour outside the narrow band deemed socially acceptable *must* be some sort of interesting phenomenon, about whom articles and studies will be written.
The article proves your point with this line: "WHAT better place to be a bully than in a prison?" It goes on to talk about this program that deprograms female inmates from bullying to becoming "inspiration" to re-training non-criminal female bullies.
LOL, because men don't ever do bad things to each other in prison. Can you imagine a company that sets to prove male bullying can be stopped by offering "inspiration stories" about inmates who stopped raping fellow inmates?
I had a major problem with my female boss in my last position - as I had gone for the same position she REALLY had a need to slap me down so that I would know that SHE was the boss; she made many nasty comments - at all levels to many people and was instrumental in my contract not being renewed.
I spent over a year trying to protect my job which I was good at - by suggesting, for example that I be moved to another department.
I was very frustrated thatthe situation was NEVER seen as anything other than a mere catfight; it was especially irritating to know that if I had been a man, there would have been at least a token intervention and I would not have left under such negative circumstances.
I'll repost the comment that I originally left on your blog (http://tinyurl.com/pdzd56) because I think it's important:
Can I also point out that the shining example used at the end of the article to demonstrate women working together and supporting one another is in the context of FORCED PRISON LABOR!?
Yes, totally agree that the article's analysis of that survey sucks.
Does the survey itself suck? Is that data useful? If so, what's would a legit analysis look like?
This response tears apart the article's analysis -- and it did suck -- but I don't think that something like "women bully women because of society and the patriarchal double-standard" is any more legitimate.
Maybe women bully other women more than other men because men are more likely to complain? Or are men less likely to recognize it as bullying? Or are women more likely to recognize it as bullying?
I don't know if I buy the survey data in the first place -- maybe it says more about how a person interprets the way their are treated than about which gender a bully chooses to target. Who answered the questions -- bullies or bullied?
And by the way, are we talked about grownups? When adults bully, that's harassment.
I agree that the patriarchal double-standard isn't an adequate explanation for bullying on its own. But that hurdle is an important reality, and the fact that this article doesn't give it serious weight is telling, and betrays the author's bias. Chas puts it nicely: "anti-feminists usually seize on these kinds of stories as evidence that women actually all hate each other and can never get on because they compete with each other too much."
I also think the survey is likely bunk. And good point about harassment.
Didn't the NY Times run an article on female workplace bullying just a few months ago? Seems like they're recycling the same story with a new tagline: "During economic down times ...."
I've experienced workplace bullying at the hands of two female co-workers who were slightly older than me. Having said that, I've seen women in senior positions verbally abuse and publicly humiliate men who were in "dead end," manual labor or tech support positions.
Here are a few thoughts:
1) As we all learned in the schoolyard, bullies never pick on someone their own size or bigger. So, of course when women bully, they usually target other women. The reputation of being a "castrating bitch" is still a powerful weapon men have against women.
2) Women are brought up to view each other as competition for the all-prized, all-important male attention--and approval.
3) But what about the MALE bullies, NY Times? They're 60% of workplace bullies, and I'd love to see an article about them--what motivates them, what practices they engage in, what can deter them. Is sexual harassment just another tool in the arsenal of male bullies? Do they also get worse during a down cycle--or are they just sadists?
But I guess the Times is more interested in portraying a catfight than seriously addressing dysfunctional work environments. Not coincidentally, it was at the same office where my less powerful male colleagues and I experienced bullying.
I would say two coworkers, whom are female, are bullies. They will gossip and go out of their way to target a coworker if they feel wronged. Instead of addressing the issues with the coworkers, they will intentionally try to start drama. One coworker used to brag about getting people fired from previous jobs. Why would someone take pride in that? The bullies I had to contend with at work were male, but they were also part of the female bully clique. They are long gone. They tried to target me at one point, but I stood up for myself. So from my experience, I blame management for allowing this crap to go on. Today, I overheard a couple of coworkers complaining about another one, saying he was negative. Its like don't any of these people have enough work to do? There is always some office drama going on. My former supervisor, a male, was also a bully, he would retaliate. Where I work, there are too many chiefs and not enough indians. Some have way too much power and it has to stop. I have been looking for a job off and on for the past 2 years, and with the economy, its more difficult. I would say, its not about male or female bullies, I have had my share of both. I work in a toxic environment. Believe me, it can happen anywhere. Just have to keep my nose clean, do my work, and stay out of the drama.
I think this article is full of sexist stereotypes and I'm disappointed that this issue is not addressed more seriously. I have been bullied twice- once in 2002 and did not last more than three months in the position and again for over a year until I was laid-off a month ago. Both were women.
As a feminist its very disappointing to me. And I will say it's only going to get worse until it gets better. I have found solidarity among women- but it is not in the workplace. In the workplace, you're on your own.
Just a question. If companies are hiring "some" poorly skilled females due to affirmative action and a "not so skilled" female just happens to be in charge would this lead to her jockeying for position by "culling" any possible well skilled competition for her lucrative spot?
I don't think that's it. If that was the case women would target men just as much as they target women.
Conclusion: women bear responsibility for our upward mobility, end of story
Who, then, do you believe bears responsibility for you upward mobility?
This doesn't make any sense. What are you trying to say?
I thought it was pretty clearly implied that the OP thought the article came to the conclusion that "women bear responsibility for our upward mobility, end of story" and that this was somehow objectionable.
I wondered who the OP believes is responsible for the upward mobility of women if they themselves are not.
Ah. Well, I would say that each individual is responsible for her own mobility (or not). And the companies are responsible for creating a hostility-free environment.
I never liked the idea that all "women" need to watch out for me because we have our gender in common. It always struck me as assigning a hive-mind to all women (something sexists do) with a dash of infantilizing. Now, this isn't the same as women speaking out for feminism, of course. More like, you have a sexist work environment, and it is the women's fault if they get harrassed because they didn't look out for each other, or articles like this that treat female aggression as freakish because we're all "supposed" to be loving nurturers who love each other (while conveniently ignoring entrenched male aggression).
Oh boy, reading the comments to this NYT article made me ill. It basically was an open door to complaining about women and repeating tired misogynist lies.
This is a great post. I have been reading Phyllis Chesler's 'Woman's Inhumanity to Woman' and it has been very enlightening. The fact is that patriarchy sets us up as competitors for men and denies our (indirect) aggression. We don’t form groups, generally we forms pairs or small groups. And now they are blaming us for keeping each other down. Convenient. I understand there is a lot of research going on in academia about woman leaders – and it echo’s what the post says. That women in power grate. They aren’t really women. They are poseurs. That is why there are so few of them, not that they keep each other down.
I have had to supervise a female bully. It has been very disheartening and I am not sure that I have handled it well. She is now in another position, thank goodness.
I love the way the article focues on women's bullying of other women- while admitting they are only 40% of bullies. Why the focus solely on women? Why not pay attention to male bullying as well? Is women bullying women so opposed to gender schemas that we can ignore men's bullying? I normally like the NYTimes, but this article made me cringe, as soon as I relized that they were focusing on the most sensationlized aspect of the bullying study, instead of on the largest bullying group.