Queen Bee: Is A Woman Holding You Back?
Study Shows Women are Harming Women!
Do you work for a female manager who is biased against other women? Take Diane Danielson’s advice on Women’s Dish, “It’s time to buzz off!”
We’ve all encountered a Queen Bee. We know of that woman who wants to be the only female working with men. That’s one rationale. The other one I suspect is that she’s thinking, “I had to work twice as hard as a man to get here . . . so I’m making sure you don’t get it any easier!” If you’re working for a Queen Bee, that’s tough, really tough. She’s a gatekeeper to the glass ceiling—she demands a higher performance from a woman than from a man.
The term “queen bee” was coined by psychologists Staines, Tavris, and Jayaratne in 1974 based on their study of twenty thousand people. It’s a travesty that their analysis is still true today. They wrote, “The Queen Bee who is successful in a male-dominated field feels little animosity toward the system that that permitted her to reach the top, and little animosity toward the men who praise her for being so unique. She identifies with the specific male colleagues who are her reference group, rather than with the diffuse concept of women as a class… The Queen Bee thereby disassociates herself from the fundamental issues of equality for women, while reassuring her male colleagues that she is not of that militant ilk.”
Yes, we still see this today. Some Queen Bees may be unaware of their prejudice against women. Some may be aware, but think it’s not obvious to others. Some may think there are no repercussions, but they should be made aware of recent lawsuit awards to victims in both the U.S. and the U.K.
Next week, I’ll talk to you about another aspect of women holding women back. It comes from a new study out of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin showing that female and older participants showed more prejudice against the idea of a female leader than did male and younger participants. It’s something that’s even more prevalent than Q.B.’s.
Tip: I maintain that you have a little leverage here if your boss is a Q.B. because I bet she wouldn’t want others referring to her with that label. So, anonymously drop a copy of this article on her desk. Or, if you prefer, drop off copies of the recent lawsuits!
Visit our website, www.WomensMedia.com, for Expert Advice for Working Women.
Further Reading:
WomensMedia Recommended Books, In the Company of Women: Turning Workplace Conflict into Powerful Alliances. by Pat Heim, Susan Murphy, Susan K. Golant (Contributor)
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As much as we’d like to profess, “No, there’s no such thing as catfighting at work. Women want to see other women succeed. How dare you suggest such a thing!,” we know deep down it certainly does exist . . . and to be honest, we probably know—from experience—how it feels to be on each end of an encounter! See my blog posting of 7/06/07 What’s With This Catfighting? —Catfighting: Learn To Handle Indirect Aggression At Work.
Pingback by Women�s Lunch Talk � What’s With This Catfighting? — July 6, 2007 @ 7:02 pm
I’m a co-author of “The Catty, Catty Ways of Women in the Workplace,” a humorous look at the serious subject of cattiness and other negative behavior that can hold women back in the workplace, and in writing the book I took a conscious, up-close-and-personal look at the way we act at work. I think the Queen Bee syndrome and in-fighting among women at the office often comes out of fear(insecurity) and a competitiveness we are often socialized to feel in the face of another woman. It isn’t that we don’t want other women to succeed, but in our mixed-up, emotional minds, sometimes another woman’s success translates to our own failure. When we are reminded that every woman who succeeds lays the groundwork for those who come after, and that positive reinforcement begets positive results, we stand to be a unified, powerful force that no man can shake.
Comment by M. Ellett — January 14, 2008 @ 8:11 pm