"I hate working for women," said a woman I'd just met at a party, after she'd unleashed about her female boss.
Apparently her boss sends her emails at 9pm and expects an immediate response. She's regularly thrown into situations were she isn't properly briefed and then is blamed when things go wrong. And her boss berates her in front of her colleagues.
![Over half of women surveyed said they also prefer a male manager.](/web/20161019155448im_/http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/3/n/e/v/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs3mjj.png/1476648298275.jpg)
Before I could say, "That sounds like Kevin Rudd," the other women in the vicinity rushed to agree that male bosses are much better than female ones. I wanted to immediately down the nearest bottle of wine.
My new acquaintance's charges against her female boss could have just as easily been levelled at a male boss. After all, CEOs (who are predominantly male) are four times more likely to be psychopaths than the rest of the population. But do we use our one or two negative experiences with male bosses to conclude that all male bosses are awful?
As a management consultant I've lost count of how many male bosses have emailed me late at night or made unreasonable demands. And as for throwing me in the deep end unprepared, I was once sent (by a male boss) to work as an accountant for a client. I had no prior accountancy experience.
"Fake it until you make it," the male boss said to me.
I've also had male bosses who watched graphic porn at their desks, organised meetings in strip clubs, felt me up at staff events, paid my underperforming male colleagues more than me, and told me that I couldn't manage a project because I was too pretty.
Not one of my female bosses has ever done any of those things.
The female-boss-hating women at the party are not an anomaly. According to a recent survey of 400 employees by Randstad, 65 per cent of Australians would prefer to work for a male boss.
And just to make this even more depressing to those among us who believe that gender equality is a good thing, the attitude hasn't changed in over 60 years.
A Gallup study in 1953 of US employees found that 66 per cent of respondents preferred a male boss.
Partly these figures can be explained by the Corporate Bro Code: men feeling emasculated by reporting to a woman. Seventy-three per cent of the men surveyed by Randstad preferred a male manager.
But just like the women at the party, over half of women surveyed said they also prefer a male manager.
Far from showing that women are not good leaders, this research reveals that female employees are just as susceptible to stereotype and prejudice as men.
Just like men, women also grow up with male authority figures. Priests, politicians, doctors, principals and authoritative characters in books and movies tend to be men.
With men we know what to expect — the good and the bad — and what is expected of us. But having a woman in charge is outside our normal experience, and just like anything that is novel, we notice and analyse the details that would otherwise go undetected.
I could write a lengthy essay on all the ways we judge women in leadership positions more critically than we judge men. From our concerns about their appearance and their maternal status and competence, to the fact that we expect women to be kind and conciliatory at all times (otherwise they are bitches).
Men, meanwhile, who are not able to please everyone all the time, are praised for being able to make the tough decisions. Similarly, male anger in the workplace is viewed as a sign of strength. For a women anger is read as emotional volatility.
But instead I'll sum it all up with one word: Trump.
Imagine if Donald Trump was a woman. Do we really think that a woman with a well-documented history of philandering, with children to three different men, who can't control her anger and impulses, and who has not done a single thing in the service of anyone but herself, would receive a presidential nomination?
We need to critically examine why it is that we demand perfection from female leaders while at the same time we are content to accept, or even overlook, all manner of transgressions from our male leaders and bosses.
If we don't, we'll still be having this same conversation in another 60 years.
Kasey Edwards is the best-selling author of Thirty-Something and Over It: What happens when you wake up and don't want to go to work. Ever again. www.kaseyedwards.com
0 comments
New User? Sign up