8 ms·
Incivility in the Workplace: The Effects of Gender, Agency and Communion
- joncrane 9y agoSo basically, women tend to be meaner to other women than the other combinations (men to men, men to women, and women to men)?
- rosser 9y agoBroadly, maybe? [0] It's hard, if not meaningless, to attempt to extrapolate hard conclusions from general trends. Individual variance within a population almost always exceeds that population's statistically visible tendencies. As many of the other top-level threads on this article indicate, there's plenty of anecdata to that effect, though. I wonder how much this research will be picked up and spun into "See? Women are ___" by people who are reading only far enough to have their biases confirmed. [0] Ugh. Not intentional, sorry. EDIT: footnote
- oh_sigh 9y agoMore precisely: Women tend to self-report that women are ruder to them than self-reported rudeness of men.
- titanix2 9y agoPersonnal anecdote here. I majored and graduated from two bachelors with very distinct demographic. The first one (CS) was 90%+ men, the other (language studies) was about 75%+ women. In the CS degree, relationship between people ranged from friendly to don’t care. Most people weren’t concerned about people that weren’t their friends in the class. All in all it was a neutral/good ambiance. In the language promotion the ambiance was awful. The class was split in various groups of 2-3 people half openly hating each other (tons of gossips going one). When a group of 4 existed, it was actually 2 groups of 2 that also disliked and bath-mouthed at any occasion. I’m sill reading the Facebook degree group sometime, and besides one year, this distrust ambiance still exists as of nowadays. So the conclusion of the paper doesn’t seem farfetched for me; it actually confirm what I experimented myself.
- kelukelugames 9y agoClick bait title. See hn guidelines. We should rewrite yes no questions.
- ythn 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
- sctb 9y agoThanks. We've removed “Is 'Queen Bee Syndrome' Getting Worse?”, which seems not to be the question addressed by the article or studies. We're happy to update the title again if someone can suggest a better one derived from the article.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoI feel the title should be fair warning this is a gender study, as that indicates a lot about what people will expect to see in the discussion about it. "Incivility at Work as Reported by Gender"?
- sctb 9y agoThanks, that's a good point. We've gone with (most of) the study title.
- rocky1138 9y agoThis article is completely useless without knowing the sample size.
- stagbeetle 9y agoHer articles are on the first page of Google, two of them are very obviously titled, and one of them even lets you download the PDF. Here it is, I've even clicked on "Sort by Year." Buzz buzz, Queen Bee. [0]https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=f7T153gAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=f7T153gAAAAJ...
- rosser 9y agoIt's entirely possible to lmgtfy without snark.
- stagbeetle 9y agoIndeed it is, my dear man! But in the words of the wise Renee Apidaesius: "Any bears that get their honey by pretending to be bees, will eventually be flooded by actual bees who mistakenly believe they are in good eusociality!"
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- weberc2 9y agoUnless it was edited, I don't interpret the comment as snarky. At least no snarkier than any other lmgtfy.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tyingq 9y agoAnecdotal, but I've heard the same from most women (those that know me well enough to share) in tech. The worst female bosses they've had were far worse than any single male boss. The story usually boils down to some version of "I succeeded in a harsher environment, suck it up". There are a few exceptions, of course. Some people have risen through the ranks mostly based on tactics like fear and intimidation. Some male, some female. Edit: Fwiw, I'm male, but with a decent track record of my female hires surpassing my success.
- jancsika 9y ago> The story usually boils down to some version of "I succeeded in a harsher environment, suck it up". Mm, that quote characterizes the root of a lot of evil in the world (or at least propagates a lot of evil). Anybody know a graceful way to disincentivize that kind of thinking?
- tyingq 9y agoI'm not sure, but some version of pointing out that men are being held more accountable these days? That is, success shouldn't be dependent on some innate ability to fend off, deflect, or ignore sexual advances and other forms of gender discrimination?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- stcredzero 9y ago> > "I succeeded in a harsher environment, suck it up" > Mm, that quote characterizes the root of a lot of evil in the world (or at least propagates a lot of evil). That quote isn't a root of evil. It's a statement that has originated in something good, which can be co-opted for evil. My own parents have said that to me. In many instances, their using that idea was for the good. However, there are some instances where the trauma of their occupation/wartime experiences showed, where they used this idea for something bad. Also, one of my professors told me something like that, when it came to my first exposure to C programming in the early 90's. Sometimes you are in a harsh environment, and you do have to suck it up and get on with it. Knowing that others have done objectively better than you are now in an objectively harsher environment is good and useful data to have. Anybody know a graceful way to disincentivize that kind of thinking? Thoughtcrime? Sorry, but seeking to prosecute thoughtcrime is far, far worse than just receiving information others have done better with less -- even if it is being used as a means of aggression.
- busterarm 9y agoHaving just come from a team where a female manager who a number of times openly stated that she only likes to work with men, and sabotaged the careers and performance of the people under her, especially the women, I can totally see this.
- majos 9y agoDid she ever explain this preference?
- smsm42 9y ago> Paired with estimates that incivility can cost organizations an estimated $14,000 per employee I would love to hear how they arrived to such a precise number. Unfortunately, no references in the article.
- AlexCoventry 9y agoIs the preprint available?
- _rpd 9y agohttp://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fapl0000289 http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fapl0000289
- AlexCoventry 9y agoThanks.
- Justsignedup 9y agoHave to admit, the reporting is not as good as I had hoped. No links to studies, very short, and for such a important topic... Anyone knows of any citation?
- Glyptodon 9y agohttp://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-56107-001?doi=1 http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-56107-001?doi=1
- DoreenMichele 9y agoI'm a woman. I appear to be the only woman to ever make the leaderboard of HN (under a different handle). This is off the cuff. But, some thoughts. I have stated that I tend to get along better with men. The response to that by other women involves ugly, bitchy personal attacks that blame me and make me feel like saying "And you wonder why I would rather deal with a man. Geez." I have blogged about my thoughts on how women eat their own. I try to be very even handed and consider the context. I think one driving factor is that female success is a scarce product. If there can be only one token woman, then whoever got there first has tremendous incentive to actively discourage and alienate other women. Being a prominent woman on HN has led to zero female allies from the site. Women do not email me or hit me up on twitter to bond with me over our participation on HN. I do have one female twitter contact who is a YC alum. It is not a strong association and did not start on HN. It started on twitter. I have had women be openly ugly to me on HN. I have had women piss all over me about how I don't speak for all women or something, never mind that I never claimed to I have had women try to "side" with me and say incredibly misandrist things and other problematic things that make me cringe and make me want to openly reject their remarks and disavow any association with them. I do feel women that came after me take it for granted that the atmosphere is more welcoming of women than when I got here, give me zero credit for my role in that and piss all over me. It makes me sympathetic to the thing described in the article of established women having a hostile just suck it up attitude. I often feel other women are trying to use me to their advantage, often at tremendous threat to my hard won position. I worked really hard to fit in here and gain the respect of the guys. I did a hard thing and many men here respect that because they have done hard things. The women who think it should be handed to them on a silver platter are often pissing all over me, my handiwork and the culture of male achievement as I have come to understand it, though I am sure my glimpses are just bare glimpses at best. Women wind up fighting over the crumbs and it gets vicious. I find this baffling. I refuse to fight over the crumbs and cannot fathom why women don't reach out to me as a potential ally. I don't fully understand what drives these patterns. I sometimes blog about it and a single off the cuff comment cannot possibly do the topic justice. I try to think through what might constitute real solutions. The tendency for women and society to pile on with the blame game is not constructive. It's all well, fine and good to note that this is a pattern. The danger is in acting like women are just pathological creatures all around and not wondering what drives such behaviors. I try like hell to be sympathetic to why other women are frequently so awful to me. But I have no plans to cut my own throat for their benefit. I would prefer to find another path forward. In the absence of that, I have every intention of looking out for myself. Nearly 6 years of homelessness taught me no one else really will.
- savagedata 9y agoI wonder if this study takes into account that, because some professions are skewed toward women and others are skewed toward men, on average women will interact more with women than with men on a daily basis. Instances of incivility from women and from men should be normalized by number of female coworkers and male coworkers. I wish I could access the PDF to see if the researchers accounted for this.