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My (sexist?) experience: The few women I've worked alongside as a software engineer have been fantastic. Easy to get along with, able to focus on work tasks a

My (sexist?) experience: The few women I've worked alongside as a software engineer have been fantastic. Easy to get along with, able to focus on work tasks and still have a great lunchtime conversation, with no alpha-nerd pedantic B.S. The women I've worked for (three) have been universally terrible. Each in slightly different ways, but all had a strange, overcompensating quality to them. I'll just have to say it: bitchiness. Strange, control-freak tendencies and subsequent drama. I've worked for two great male bosses, two idiots, and one brilliant guy who was an asshole (but at least he could be reasoned with). I would take all but one of the male bosses over any of the female bosses. My conclusion isn't that women are bad managers, or anything like that. Rather, I believe it shows that people with lousy people skills are distributed across both sexes, and promoting worker bees to management positions is not an ideal plan.

JanezStupar 16y ago
I confirm this experience and the anecdotal evidence I gathered is quite similar. Edit: Almost forgot - I also had a female boss I would work for in a beat. I must mention that she was more of a tomboy - but still what a woman: pragmatic, ambitious, decisive, tough but fair. All the general qualities one would expect from a man, but with added softness of female persuasion and communication skills.
- jarin 16y ago
  It's funny how good female bosses are often described as "tomboyish". I'm starting to think "tomboy" is just a synonym for "assertive but likeable woman"
  - khafra 16y ago
    I always thought "tomboyish" meant "willing to climb a tree," with possible overtones of "hair shorter than shoulder length."
jarin 16y ago
I've had similar experiences. I think it's possible that the deck is stacked enough against women getting into positions of power that in general the women who get promoted past a certain level are the ones who overcompensate and act more like the stereotypical "ruthless businessman". Then again, that's kind of true for guys too (although to a lesser extent).

JanezStupar 16y ago

I confirm this experience and the anecdotal evidence I gathered is quite similar. Edit: Almost forgot - I also had a female boss I would work for in a beat. I must mention that she was more of a tomboy - but still what a woman: pragmatic, ambitious, decisive, tough but fair. All the general qualities one would expect from a man, but with added softness of female persuasion and communication skills.

jarin 16y ago
It's funny how good female bosses are often described as "tomboyish". I'm starting to think "tomboy" is just a synonym for "assertive but likeable woman"
- khafra 16y ago
  I always thought "tomboyish" meant "willing to climb a tree," with possible overtones of "hair shorter than shoulder length."

jarin 16y ago

I've had similar experiences. I think it's possible that the deck is stacked enough against women getting into positions of power that in general the women who get promoted past a certain level are the ones who overcompensate and act more like the stereotypical "ruthless businessman". Then again, that's kind of true for guys too (although to a lesser extent).