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Article in the Times
May. 11th, 2009 12:03 pmInteresting article in the Times about women bullies in the workplace.
The article kind of goes all over the place--is it about bullying in general or women bullies or women targeting other women? Very interesting, and perhaps news-worthy, but I kind of dread it when article or books about female "aggression" come out. Of course it's a topic worthy of discussion, but then the floodgates open and everyone has to comment about how catty girls and women supposedly are, and how they're so competitive, and all women hate each other. Like this charming diatribe:
Women have NEVER been taught to work WITH each other. It s quite evident at the junior high and high school levels where they are competing for the same boyfriend. Backstabbing and rumor networking are a part of everyday life in school. Whereas boys have been taught in high school to work WITH each other as a team, as evident with high school sports and academia such as math and science. I NEVER liked working for a woman supervisor because they were as hard as nails. These experiences included name calling and insults. Women in management positions have always felt that they had to be equal, if not better, than their male counterparts. It wasn't until I went into the military that I felt I at least had a fair chance of getting promoted based on merit. When I got out I swore I would never work FOR a woman again and eventually became self-employed. Women have a LOT to learn if they really want to be corporate successes and it should start when they begin puberty. They NEED to learn to work together!
AAAAAUUUGH. The sheer idiocy--girls don't play sports in high school? Girls don't study math and science? (And does this moron really think science isn't competitive? Check out James Watson sometime. Or the jockeying for the cure to AIDS.) And what kum ba ya school did YOU attend where the boys don't bully but hold hands and play nice? Really, boys never bully? Never call another, smaller boy fag or loser? Interesting, I'm sure that's news to a lot of kids. Oh, and this gem, stated as though it's a female character flaw instead of an indictment on sexism: Women in management positions have always felt that they had to be equal, if not better, than their male counterparts. Gee, ya think?! Why might that be?
In 2002/3, the books Odd Girl Out and Queen Bees and WannaBes were published to a lot of attention. Sure, the phenomenon of girl aggression is interesting, and typically different from boy aggression (non-physical, shunning, etc.). But I think there's been almost TOO much attention paid to it--now every time something like this comes out, everyone has to chime in with how hateful girls are and how women all hate each other, often with a comment about boys deal with other differently (i.e., better), as though boys are somehow fundamentally more decent. In other words, to hijack the discussion into a vehicle for misogyny. It's like when mothers kill their own children--there's an outsize amount of attention paid to it, compared to when fathers kill their own children. (Male and female rates of infanticide are roughly equal by the way, although violent criminals in general are disproportionately male.)
The other day I was on Amazon reading the reviews and comments about the Judy Blume classic Blubber. (LOVE that book--"There was something about Linda that made them want to see how far they could go.") There was one review that drove me crazy--no fewer than three times the person blamed it all on the girls--"the girls gang up," "the girls' cruelty," "adolescent girls." The ENTIRE CLASS in Blubber humiliates Linda. Sure, Wendy is the ringleader but everyone joins in--that's the point. Everyone stops singing on the word in "Beautiful Dreamer," everyone forces her to eat the chocolate, Robbie pulls something as well.
The article kind of goes all over the place--is it about bullying in general or women bullies or women targeting other women? Very interesting, and perhaps news-worthy, but I kind of dread it when article or books about female "aggression" come out. Of course it's a topic worthy of discussion, but then the floodgates open and everyone has to comment about how catty girls and women supposedly are, and how they're so competitive, and all women hate each other. Like this charming diatribe:
Women have NEVER been taught to work WITH each other. It s quite evident at the junior high and high school levels where they are competing for the same boyfriend. Backstabbing and rumor networking are a part of everyday life in school. Whereas boys have been taught in high school to work WITH each other as a team, as evident with high school sports and academia such as math and science. I NEVER liked working for a woman supervisor because they were as hard as nails. These experiences included name calling and insults. Women in management positions have always felt that they had to be equal, if not better, than their male counterparts. It wasn't until I went into the military that I felt I at least had a fair chance of getting promoted based on merit. When I got out I swore I would never work FOR a woman again and eventually became self-employed. Women have a LOT to learn if they really want to be corporate successes and it should start when they begin puberty. They NEED to learn to work together!
AAAAAUUUGH. The sheer idiocy--girls don't play sports in high school? Girls don't study math and science? (And does this moron really think science isn't competitive? Check out James Watson sometime. Or the jockeying for the cure to AIDS.) And what kum ba ya school did YOU attend where the boys don't bully but hold hands and play nice? Really, boys never bully? Never call another, smaller boy fag or loser? Interesting, I'm sure that's news to a lot of kids. Oh, and this gem, stated as though it's a female character flaw instead of an indictment on sexism: Women in management positions have always felt that they had to be equal, if not better, than their male counterparts. Gee, ya think?! Why might that be?
In 2002/3, the books Odd Girl Out and Queen Bees and WannaBes were published to a lot of attention. Sure, the phenomenon of girl aggression is interesting, and typically different from boy aggression (non-physical, shunning, etc.). But I think there's been almost TOO much attention paid to it--now every time something like this comes out, everyone has to chime in with how hateful girls are and how women all hate each other, often with a comment about boys deal with other differently (i.e., better), as though boys are somehow fundamentally more decent. In other words, to hijack the discussion into a vehicle for misogyny. It's like when mothers kill their own children--there's an outsize amount of attention paid to it, compared to when fathers kill their own children. (Male and female rates of infanticide are roughly equal by the way, although violent criminals in general are disproportionately male.)
The other day I was on Amazon reading the reviews and comments about the Judy Blume classic Blubber. (LOVE that book--"There was something about Linda that made them want to see how far they could go.") There was one review that drove me crazy--no fewer than three times the person blamed it all on the girls--"the girls gang up," "the girls' cruelty," "adolescent girls." The ENTIRE CLASS in Blubber humiliates Linda. Sure, Wendy is the ringleader but everyone joins in--that's the point. Everyone stops singing on the word in "Beautiful Dreamer," everyone forces her to eat the chocolate, Robbie pulls something as well.
