Who Is Your Workplace Enemy?

Workplace Buzz on June 21, 2007 7:18 AM

Judith Sills, for Psychology Today, writes, various psychological factors explain some of the challenges females face.

A gentleman complained recently that, though his private club had committed itself to increasing female membership, the admissions committee had thus far been unsuccessful. "No matter which woman is proposed," he said, "some other woman blackballs her."

Two women are comparing career trajectories, one complaining that she was stalled for two years, until she finagled a lateral move.

"What was the problem?"

"Woman boss."

Could it be true? A woman's worst workplace enemy is another woman?

There are psychological factors that may explain this perception.

Anthropology. "Yo, Bernie. How's about bringing that bison over to my cave?" Since the beginning of social organization, female survival and the survival of their young depended on how well they could compete with other women for the resources that men could provide. Surely such competitive instincts are hard-wired. Why would they not surface clearly in the gladiatorial arena of the office?

Female gender expectations. Women train primarily for and highly value the cooperative skills so necessary to maintaining family and community. Open competition with each other is a direct violation of these social expectations. A man after the credit or the clout is, after all, only being a man. But a woman concerned with the same rewards is a backstabber.

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