Female-to-female bullying

All over the world, and most especially, in corporate America, a terrible war is being waged, one that seems so unlikely and preposterous. It is woman against woman, and it is a systematic and conscious marginalizing of smart, talented, women of all looks, race and shape who face a daily work-place assault by the least likely of oppressors- their female supervisor - one who subjects her underlings to such extreme and inappropriate behavior that if a man did it (and with today’s laws, he wouldn’t, not if he were smart anyway), would be facing a sexual harassment suit faster than you could say “Anita Hill.” Bullying is now recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA) as a serious public health problem.

In the Orlando Business Journal, Liz Urbanski Farrell wrote that workplace bullying costs $180M in lost time and productivity. In the US alone, total work related diseases including stress account for a total cost of $26 billion annually.

The victims, or ‘targets’, are women who, just like you, worked so hard to get through school, who, like any normal woman, fight every day with their own feelings of inadequacy and have dealt with sexual harassment and cat-calls and put up and made their peace with men who were promoted over them, even though they were more qualified, and who maybe even sought a job where a woman was their supervisor because they thought it would be somehow better, and find themselves, to their surprise, facing the biggest bully of all. To be clear, just as not all men or even most men harass women at work, the female bully is not every boss or even most female bosses. She is the exception, not the rule, but her domain is growing and sightings become more and more common.

Female-to-female bullying occurs at corporations both large and small and is a global phenomenon. It’s an issue that has become as serious and dangerous, if not more, than sexual harassment, thought to be a between the sexes issue. But bullying is just as bad, if not worse, because it is unexpected by most (most targets are surprised and blindsided to find a woman assaulting them and undermining them and wonder what happened to sisterhood) and far more sinister. It is in issue that has finally begun to receive notice in the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe, where there are groups and legal advice aides, and the like. But as of this writing, bullying is not yet recognized in the United States - or if it is, perhaps it is still hard for many to believe that a woman could cause another woman any serious emotional or physical damage.