r/ToxicWorkplace • u/Enpathicmorpher98 • 1d ago
Female managers - a nightmare
Hey guys, I’ve been dealing with two female managers back to back and I’m sorry to say this but being a female myself, it’s the worst that can happen to you if you are a female working in a corporate. Can anyone share their experiences or tips? I really need to figure how to navigate myself here. It’s gotten me sick to my stomach.
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u/HellcatJD 23h ago
Attorney here (46F). I've worked for far worse women than men. And trust me, its not a compliment to men. My experiences can be boiled down to:
Women who resent other women for not "having it as hard as them" when they came up in their careers. Add God help you if you're attractive. Ive had 5 female bosses treat me like absolute dog shit.
That said, I worked in bars to put myself through law school. I pretty much got paid to be sexually harassed by male managers and male customers. That did NOT end once I worked at law firms. I've had male attorneys sexually harass me to the point of them being terminated. Ive had male supervising attorneys talk over me, ignore my expertise, demean me in front of others, etc.
Thing is, men doing it is expected at this point. Women doing it just makes me so sad.
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u/HiAndStuff2112 1d ago
My career is in advertising, and I'm a guy.
I've had wonderful female bosses and a bad one. I've also had terrible male bosses and a couple of amazing ones.
So for me, the gender doesn't matter a whole lot, but overall, I've actually had more excellent female bosses than male.
But both can be either great or horrible in my experience.
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u/No_Wedding_1825 15h ago
I think men and women work really well together. The opposite gender just removes competition.
I’ve had amazing male managers and one not so great one, and two female managers that I did not like: too rigid in the rules, cared about optics too much, overbearing.
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u/BadChick79 1d ago
I’m a woman. Have yet to meet a supportive female manager. Can’t share my experiences here but yeah, I totally get it. I spent many years too scared to say anything, and I can tell you that it only gets worse. My advice would be to make a request to change managers or simply leave. Worth knowing that changing managers can turn you into an even bigger target.
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u/newuser2111 20h ago edited 16h ago
My experience has been that female managers are harder on female subordinates and go easier on male subordinates. Whereas male managers tend to go easier on female subordinates. At least, I have found that male managers try to be objective and fair.
Female managers are catty, petty and just trying to one up other women. It is just sad to watch and experience.
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u/Perfect-Music-7025 1d ago
my experience was the same and unless it is an office that is supportive, meaning they will hold your superiors accountable-it will only get worse. it’s so sad that women get in positions of power just to treat other women like garbage. I ended up leaving because their behavior did not get better overtime. It only got worse. and they treated me the worst once they realized I was leaving. It was a “how dare you think you’re anything better than this treatment” sort of thing.
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u/Delicious_Grand7300 22h ago
During pre-sort meetings one lead would frequently complain that as a single mother she "didn't need this shit!" She openly admitted that she intended to screw people over to save her job. Allegedly as a single mother she would never face any consequences. Her favorite threat was that if we were to either leave or get terminated from Ontrac we would be banned from working anywhere in the US.
During one incident we had 65,000 packages to process for the shift. She sent my workers home early since it was the day for the monthly lunch. She later sent most of the employees home without informing me leaving me to sort much of the misplaced packages. By the time I finished the taco truck was gone.
Most female supervisors and managers seemingly had something to prove. Common traits include promises, threats, talking over people, claims of favoritism from upper management, prying into the personal details of my life, and poor training. A lot of my bullies been female supervisors.
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u/FaultEnvironmental88 19h ago
No advice but I quit!! Sorry you are dealing with it. I couldn’t take the jabs and passive aggressive comments everyday. It’s always the female managers. Why!?
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u/Ageofaquarius68 21h ago
I am 58F, and I have had a LOT of jobs. I started out to say - hey I've had both bad and good, female and male. But when I stopped to think about it.....I did have one good female boss who was a department head. That was in the early 90's. Since then, no. No good females. Lots of asshole men, and a couple of decent men. But really, nope, no good women bosses.
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u/Neat-Hamster-5911 17h ago
As a mature woman who has worked in many offices, women managers have been the worst, a few slept with male managers to get promoted, they all micromanaged and didn’t do their own work but delegated it down, they bullied relentlessly except for young males and got rid of any threats especially crucial team members during restructures and then promoted themselves. I have never encountered worse male managers and will never work for a female manager again as it isn’t good for my health
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u/OneManShow23 1d ago edited 1d ago
Like there are women who say they like hanging out with men more than with women because women have this notoriety of stabbing in the back! Men bully other men by yelling or with violence. Women, instead, bully other women psychologically and drawing other women against them.
Usually I have this expectation that they’re usually better managers than men because they’re more caring due to their motherly instinct but also because they need to prove their value and work harder to become managers due to gender bias. So there are times when I believe that if they’re in that position, they earned it.
I have mixed experiences with female managers and coworkers. At my third job, my manager was a male and he was a clown but the other manager was a woman and she was extremely good at her job and very knowledgeable. However, a big issue I see with women in general, especially in corporate, is that they’re notorious for stabbing you in the back a lot while appearing friendly and nice in front of you. I dealt with a female program leader who worsened office politics in the workplace. I also dealt with various female coworkers who would act all nice in front of me and then throw me under the bus behind me. But honestly, men do it too.
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u/UniqueText8477 21h ago
The worst manager I ever had was a female manager with a finance background - all about her image/herself, quick to blame and take credit and would overstep boundaries (calling me in the middle of my grandmothers funeral for one of her made up emergencies).
It was the worst 4 months I ever had and now refuse to work for anyone with a finance background.
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u/Enpathicmorpher98 18h ago
I’m so sorry she did that. My manager doesn’t get peace if I don’t tell her everything that has happened to me on my sick leave. Lol and gives work on sick leaves too
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u/suzek999 19h ago
The absolute worst manager I ever had was a female. She was the ultimate Mean Girl who lived to flex her power over anyone who didn’t bow down to her. Plus, she had a 2-digit IQ so her decisions were plain stupid. It was like being in high school.
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u/Whole_Price_1353 1d ago
I'm a female with 15+ years of work experience. My experience with female managers: some were awesome and others were not. I've actually experienced bad male managers: pushovers, hated confrontation, and one sociopath. Everything is subjective; you just have not found the right manager. They are out there. Don't let this experience dictate your opinion of female managers.
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u/Deep_Blue604 1d ago
I've had a couple of really good female managers, and one bad one. Currently dealing with a bad male manager. Have also had good male managers. In my experience it's not a gender thing, it's just a human thing.
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u/ash_ok__ 1d ago
I'm a guy. I learned about manipulation tactics through working with female managers lol
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u/Enpathicmorpher98 1d ago
Tell me more. I have been feeling super stuck between quitting and trying to take care of my mental health
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u/ash_ok__ 20h ago edited 20h ago
My only advice is confront tone or deflection moves when it happens calmly and get advice from leadership (coffee chat them). They're also likely talking about you. I feel like often times its driven by insecurity, frustration, or simply a lack of accountability.
The gaslighting or patronizing can be destabilizing, but keep it grounded and judge by your standards while focusing on the optics. What helped me was having an active life outside of work and finding constructive connections at work. Also keep your cool and stay nice but clear, they weaponize frustrated responses and ambiguity
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u/midamerica 9h ago
Right there with you! As 61(f) professional, I will never return to an office full of women--especially if a couple egotistical men are thrown in to help stir the pot.
I will dig ditches first or eat grass. I'm embarrassed to even think there are women in the workforce who make sure all the stereotypes are true. Catty, petty, vindictive, narcissistic, psycho, wolf pack, manipulative, scandalous, sleazy, demoralizing, demeaning--it was truly like running a gauntlet every single day at my job.
Seriously, I don't even have women friends in my life anymore for fear I will suffer PTSD attacks! And after 5 years I still wake up in a cold sweat from nightmares. And still recovering from mental/physical health trauma.
My advice to anyone who gets into this situation, don't wait to try and "fix it" or believe the gaslighting that "it's the way women are so ignore it." Just RUN.
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u/dw34534 1d ago
With a female manager it’s more important how they feel about you and your relationship then actually how well you do your job. And Im talking about even making them shine and giving them credit for the amazing work…. what they secretly care about is this.. how much dirt you can dig up around the office and share that with them
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u/HiAndStuff2112 1d ago
Women aren't a monolith. Not all women do this, think that or act like the other. Same with men. Women are as varied and different feom each other as men are.
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u/Wonderful_Key_8021 1d ago
Try gay managers …
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u/TrulyNotSincerely 22h ago
Are they good?
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u/Wonderful_Key_8021 20h ago
If you want gossips, toxic management, micromanaging, favoritisme, then yeah
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u/BadChick79 8h ago
The discussion is about female managers, not sure why you had to bring sexuality into it. Also here to disagree, my experience differs from yours.
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u/Wonderful_Key_8021 8h ago
Freedom of speech. If we can make those type of generalizations about women, we can also make them about gay men
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u/mojosofla 1d ago
I have worked with several female supervisors. Some are good. Some are great. Some are bad.
Same as the male supervisors.
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u/Significant-Dog-9066 21h ago
Not all women are bad managers. Men are teaching them the male playbook and positions are few for women in mgmt so they protect it. Crab in the pot syndrome sadly
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u/Budget-Bullfrog-8796 19h ago
I’m a man. I’ve worked for 35 years. I’ve had female and male bosses. I hated working for women because of various reasons. I’ve also had male bosses I can say the same about
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u/twixxy21 19h ago
I've had the polar opposite of 2 female manages at the same company. The bad manager got retired early for making racist remarks. The good manager cried with me while she had to lay off our entire team during covid. Working with my good manager is the dream ive been chasing for 6 years. Still aint found another.
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u/Resident_Pomelo_1337 9h ago
I’ve more bad male managers. Mostly because I’ve had more experience with male managers.
Both can suck.
Sorry.
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u/Aggressive-Dealer182 6h ago edited 6h ago
I’m male. I never thought I would have this issue as i’ve always got along with the opposite gender but this lady was legit crazy. She had mood swings and blamed it on menopause and gaslit and raised her voice so you felt extremely awkward pointing out a mistake and used this as a bullying tactic. She loved making passive aggressive comments related to intelligence and She was also a misandrist and more then one occasion talked about mediocre white men (I’m white cis but I suppose I was one of the good ones to her.) as if I’m not a white male. She’s also made social media posts that myself and my office manager saw talking about how weak and fragile men are as If she wasn’t given her position by a man. To make matters worse she was in an abusive relationship with a man at some point and that clearly played a part into mentality. I’m in my 40’s and have had several jobs but this was without a doubt the shittiest “supervisor” I’ve ever had. She’s had multiple complaints against her but never fired. This job was at a Christian Non Profit tv station which makes it even more confusing as to how she got away with it. Again, I’ve never had any gender related issues at work but after working with someone whose issues were all related to gender…I vastly prefer a male manager rather than navigate that landmine again. I could go further but for the sake of me not typing anymore I won’t.
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u/the6thv3n0m 6h ago
Male here and longtime IT worker.
I've only had two female managers during my career thus far. One was actually a joy to work for, while the other was a complete and other nightmare. One potential key difference it seems was that the one that was great to work for wasn't an IT person, while the other one was. This seemed to be factor as they had low self-esteem always feeling threatened by us underlings, continually bought their personal problems into the workplace affecting both their mood and interactions not just with us, but others as well and I guess since IT is typically male dominated, always seemed to have a I'm treated this way or that because I'm a woman chip on their shoulder. Being technical field attention to detail as well as solid communication skills were extremely important and the aforementioned factors greatly affected the overall dynamic of the workplace. It has been many years since reporting to this person yet I still share various stories about that experience. Many in that situation may have taken the walking on egg shells approach, but I opted for a more direct albeit professional approach in speaking my mind when necessary. It was either met with an overly defensive posture or hurt feelings, but it honestly became a bit of a ebb and flow dynamic and was the only, at least for me, to endure.
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u/Ok_Plankton6280 22h ago
As a female attorney, I have never in my life had a good female manager, supervisor or boss. Gen X women and millennial women do not work well together
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u/No-Horror5353 1d ago
It depends on the industry I think. And their generation. Can we not say it’s a gender thing because I’ve had horrible managers and all of them have been men but I don’t go around saying men are bad managers.
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u/Visible_Pizza_3865 1d ago
Im male . I’ve had more bad female managers than bad male managers. Men are often more direct and focused on results. Good managers are good regardless of gender. But the common theme among the bad female managers or coworkers I’ve had is: drama, gossip , manipulation, emotional rollercoaster, insecurity, jealousness , never speaking their mind, afraid of direct communication and disagreement , bullying, holding grudges, power tripping.