Yes – some women bully.
Yes – some powerful women bully. And yes – it can be related to toxic
masculine culture. Sometimes.
I was recently asked by a reporter to give my opinion on women bullying women in the workplace.
First – bullying is about power and control. It is about having the ability to
deem someone as part of the ingroup or part of the outgroup. In other
words, a bully gets their power by including some people and excluding others.
Women who are the first
to do whatever, to succeed, may have to adopt the traits of the dominant bully
– to be accepted by them and to function. I think there was some research
done that showed, this dynamic is more prevalent when there are fewer women
competing for scares roles and resources, than in situations where there are
more women and the competition is more – friendly and collaborative.
But we do see this – queen bee – dynamic is women only groups as well. And what
is happening is the same. It’s about creating control. Who is included and who
is excluded. And aggression and bullying, allows them to control who is in and
who is out. That dynamic has nothing to do with toxic masculinity. Both
men and women play this game. Men tend to do it more overtly, women – more
covertly. But both men and women bully in roughly equal amounts. It’s just rare
to see women bully using the same techniques men use. We only see that when
there is only one or two women in a group that is otherwise dominated by a
toxic male who bullies. So let’s define toxic masculinity as – sexist bullying.
Let’s turn to the questions
There's been a surge in toxic masculinity around women
No – there has not.
What is happening is women aren’t’ tolerating sexist bullying anymore and what
we are seeing is a surge in reporting of incidences – not a surge in sexist
bullying. It’s always been there – and honestly – it used to be a lot worse.
It’s better now – because people are reporting and talking about it. The surge
is in women’s willingness to reporting it.
How does toxic masculinity impact women in power in the workplace?
Women are impacted by
toxic masculinity because some men are sexist and use sexist bullying to keep
women out of positions of power or to exclude them from decision making
processes. Men are impacted by this too by the way. Anytime they are put
down as being too – feminine in some way – they are a victim of toxic
masculinity that sees gender roles as rigid and that degrades and devalues
females and holds masculinity as the ideal. This is a form of sexist bullying.
It impacts both genders. It’s purpose is to control ingroup and outgroups
– or inclusion vs. exclusion in the decision making process.
Is this the only reason they're bullies?
No. People bully
because it works to create control over group dynamics. Toxic
masculinity/sexist bullying is generally a more masculine form of bullying, but
women bullying too and for the same reasons. The form the bullying takes, depends
on what is considered socially acceptable. It is well known that a bullying
boss, creates a bullying culture where people try to emulate the boss to curry
favor. It is in these situations that a woman might engage in sexist bullying,
more than say – passive aggressive behavior.
What can workplaces do to combat this? What steps must be taken?
Workplaces need to
learn how to make unwanted behavior – like bullying stop. There is a behavioral
science protocol called – extinguishing a behavior that they need to learn.
It’s slightly technical – but most people can understanding. For any stimulus –
you can respond in a positive, negative or neutral way. If you want to
eliminate a behavior – neutral is what works. And then how often you do this –
consistently or variably. Consistency works – variably makes the unwanted
behavior stronger. And finally, you need to know that when you remove the
reward for the unwanted behavior, the behavior will escalate for a bit. This is
predicted and is known as an extinction burst or blow out. The key to making
unwanted behavior stop – is to manage the extinction burst through to
completion. Meaning – you have to keep removing the reward 100% of the time
through the escalation and increase the cost associated with the behavior.
There is no way to address this once and succeed, you have to keep on it until
the behavior stops and that can take a few weeks. As for steps to take – I
normally recommend training HR, then upper management. Then – redo your
processes to maximize behavioral extinction. Then – train middle management and
then lower management on the new processes and expectations. Then – train staff
and then manage the change process over the next year as people start to use
the system. You have to positively reward people who report and manage the
extinction process. The reason you have to have executive buy in – is because –
some people won’t be able to change. Maybe only one or to in any group of 100.
But they will have to be let go and if there is not a willingness to do that –
there is no point in going through this process.
Have you ever been
impacted by toxic masculinity from a woman?
Yes. I had fired a
toxic volunteer at a non-profit I used to work at and she retaliated and got a
few of my fellow directors (also female) to attack me. And I was accused of
sexual misconduct among other things. Even if I had done what they had accused
me of (coming on to the son of a donor – which I hadn’t – the mother had asked
me out on behalf of her son – which was sweet but weird). But even if I
had flirted and come on to this young man – there was literally nothing wrong
with me doing that. So the attack was just sexist nonsense. They also
accused me of wearing slutty clothes to a fundraising event – which I hadn’t. You
get the idea. These were overt sexist attacks on me – and were designed to get
the men running the organization to think less of me. In other words, they were
hoping that the men in charge of our non-profit were sexist and so they could
manipulate them against me. It didn’t work. Mostly – because those men –
weren’t sexist in the slightest - and I hadn’t done any of the things I had
been accused of.
What steps did you take to resolve this?
First – I had allies.
Lots of allies. And I had those allies because I am fundamentally honest and
caring and helpful and professional. The allegations made against me – were
things that no one really believed and that were easily disproved. Most
importantly – I had allies among the male leadership of the organization. The
sexist attacks against me were targeting them to get them to think less of me
as a woman by painting me as a dishonorable woman with a quite normal sex drive
– because apparently – being interested in men as a young single woman – makes
one – dishonorable. Seriously – the whole thing was stupid. Anyway – when the
attacks came, my allies warned me of the rumors and that allowed me to prepare
my defense – which was to basically tell the truth – no – I had not hit on this
guy – he hit on me and had his mom come into my office to ask me out on his
behalf – to which – I said no – I already had a boyfriend. And to address the
clothing choice charges – which was quite easy – because the night in question
– I had been with my boss – a man – for 7 hours while wearing that cocktail
dress my mother bought me and he couldn’t remember what it looked like – so it
was definitely – not inappropriately sexy. I just happened to be skinny and
beautiful and that isn’t a crime. I’m not going to lie, it was an
incredibly unpleasant thing to go through. I thought about quitting. But I had
been hired – specifically to change the culture of the organization and I was
succeeding which is why I was attacked. I had allies who really liked the
changes that had occurred, and they worked to protect me and gave me
encouragement to stay because they needed me to stay and succeed. If it had not
been for the allies – I would have quit. It was really seriously unpleasant.
What advice do you have for companies to fix toxic masculinity in their workplace when it comes to women abusing their power?
First – don’t just
focus on toxic masculinity. Focus on toxic culture period. Women don’t
engage in toxic sexist bullying unless they believe that is what the men want.
So toxic culture, bullying of any sort – sexist, racist or whatever ist –
cannot be tolerated – ever. Learn what is required to make unwanted
behavior stop. Change your processes for handling these things to maximize behavioral
extinction, then train everyone. And commit to the change process. When you
take power away from people who are using bullying and harassment to create
power – they will fight you. Be prepared for that and be prepared to fire
anyone who doesn’t adapt the new ways of being. Most people will be super glad
the culture is changing. The few that resist will eventually get on board. The
people who fight it – actively – and whose behavior gets substantially worse –
will need to be fired. Without a realistic willingness to do this – don’t even
try.
My main lesson for leaders who want to change the culture? Recruit in change agents. Be honest with them about what needs to change and why. Actively protect your change agents from the attacks – which are predicted to occur (make sure they know they are needed and appreciated so they don’t quit on you). Only then – will you succeed.
More importantly - if you want to learn how to make workplace bullying stop - while still maintaining your professionalism - take this online course - https://humanistlearning.com/how-to-humanistically-handle-bad-bullying-bosses/ or get the book/audiobook
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