"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them." Albert Einstein Women in the Middle East: October 2006 XING View Nina Mohadjer's profile on LinkedIn
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Women in the Middle East

General women issues, middle eastern women rights, islamic women's rights

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Are all female bosses B.'s?

This morning I read an article, which indicated that it was much tougher to be a female boss than a male one. I thought this was referring to the balance of family and career and thought: True.
When I continued reading though, I noticed that it was referring to the position of the female boss vs. the male boss. It questioned why it was more challenging for women to say No to certain tasks and set their expectations without getting too emotional.
I am not sure if I see it this way. I had male bosses and female ones, male professors and female ones. To be honest: I preferred most of the time (not always) the male ones. It might be that they were impressed that I was trying to balance, family, career and studies. Maybe. It might be that they were trying to act sweet with some other intentions in mind. Maybe.
However, having said that, I have to think at my previous job: a girl, without any experience, or maybe little experience got a job higher than mine, was not accepted by anyone in the team, and I helped her to reach that acceptance level. She got stronger, and guess who her first victim was in the back stabbing game: me. All of a sudden, she felt too important to be even saying Good morning. I think most of the times we women are tougher on each other. I think if a female boss has a male worker, she is automatically nicer to him than to all the other female workers. Another example: Same work, same team: a woman with a lot of experience, more on the shy side, was promised a rise in the company ladder, but guess who kissed his way up? The male worker, who happened to have two female managers. So, I guess it all depends on the circumstances. A female boss is not automatically a B, neither is a male boss automatically a chauvinistic pig. Right?!