“I ended up confronting my boss about her behaviour,” recalls May. But in order to encourage women to speak out against workplace bullying, a wider culture shift could also be needed. Larger companies are usually well-equipped with HR departments that are able to address individual concerns. Thankfully, employers are wising up to the issue of workplace bullying, between women or otherwise. Because there are fewer women in senior leadership and competition is so fierce, some women think there isn’t enough space at the table and therefore are keen to fight for what they deem is their rightful seat over and above another.” “I’ve seen this happen when women try to embody their masculinity and subsequently discard their feminine energy, to be seen on a level playing field with men. “The more senior the women are, the more often they are compared to their male counterparts or more likely have male bosses,” says leadership coach Beth Hocking. And that’s considered an improvement compared to previous figures. Today, out of the 500 companies in the Fortune 500 list, just 8.8 per cent of the CEOs are women. “I was good at my job and, as I started gaining more experience in other areas of the business in a bid to move away from her, I think she realised she couldn’t control me any more and so attempted to destroy my reputation and confidence to make herself feel better and try to gain back control.” “I think my boss was threatened by me,” says Gina. It’s this mindset that often causes women to act out against one another one woman’s success is another’s shortcoming. And so they are taught to fight for the tiny scraps of power they may be afforded by crushing other women and girls.” Who is the prettiest? Who is the smartest? There can only be one, you see. “Women and girls learn early on that they are in competition with other women and girls. “The world is a horrible but very successful and effective patriarchy, and we are all brought up to live and work in it,” explains author, psychologist and CEO at Victim Focus, Dr Jessica Taylor. It would be easy to write off women bullying women at work to something as simple as jealousy, or to simply refer to it as Queen Bee Syndrome in action. “She expected me to work after hours every day, and most days I would get home in tears.” “It got to the point that I couldn’t tell her about what I was doing in my free time because of the judgement, questions and curiosity that was completely unprofessional,” she recalled. Like Audrey Gelman and Lauren Kassan, who founded the famously elitist all-female members club The Wing, which closed following allegations of discrimination, or Elizabeth Holmes, the CEO of blood-testing start-up Theranos who was recently sentenced to 11 years in prison for fraud.įor Katy, 27, the issue was that her boss kept getting involved in her personal life. It all quickly unravelled, though, several years later as stories of failed so-called Girl Bosses emerged. For a while, it was the bastion of contemporary feminism inspirational female leaders perpetuating its ideologies were hailed as icons and given clothing lines. Originating in 2014, “Girl Boss” was a term prescribed to female leaders whose success was characterised by Sheryl Sandberg’s “lean in” approach. It’s also the one we’ve become increasingly familiar with in recent years. In this instance, Sylvie represents the gate-keeping matriarch turning her nose up at another woman whose role she sees as a threat to her own. Madeline (Kate Walsh), meanwhile, represents the #GirlBoss mug-drinking, #SmashThePatriarchy sign-bearing counterpart, which is arguably the more insidious trope of the two. And yet, even in 2022, the sentiment of Albright’s quote feels utterly utopian – because that special place is very real indeed, and it’s filling up fast. It’s a quote often used in relation to the workplace as a way of inspiring female employees to lift one another up. The former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who died earlier this year, famously said “there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women”. “It made me feel like I was losing my mind.” “She would regularly take her frustration out on me and once screamed in my face.” This only ever happened when they were alone other colleagues dismissed her concerns. But he said that a colleague had informed him of my ‘misconduct’ and he had to take action.” It was the latest in a long line of false accusations made against Gina by her line manager. “I replied that I only ever use my phone during lunch, which is true. When Gina’s boss accused her of using her phone at work, she immediately knew who had told him.
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