We’ve said that the fundamental flaw underlying the arguments of the books in the “mean girls at work” genre is their assumption that women’s distinctive same-gender workplace conflict is the result of fixed, unique female personality characteristics. To the contrary, people’s behavior — both women’s and men’s — is determined far more by the situations in which they find themselves than by their gender. 

For example, in a study of the personality traits of single fathers, single mothers, and married parents, researchers found that the traits of single men with childcare responsibilities were more like those of mothers (single and married) than like those of married fathers.

In addition to mass-market books such as Mean Girls, Meaner Women, Tripping the Prom Queen, Working with Bitches, and Mean Girls Grow Up, there is extensive academic literature arguing that women’s and men’s moral sensitivities and relational patterns are fundamentally different. Authors such as feminist psychoanalysts Nancy Chodorou and Jean Baker Miller and psychologist Carol Gilligan claim that male gender identity is defined by separation, whereas female gender identity is defined by intimacy. These purportedly distinctive identity styles are said to demonstrate that women’s and men’s natures are different, enduring, and unchangeable.

Despite this claim, as Carol Tavris points out in Mismeasure of Woman, “research in recent years casts considerable doubt on the notion that men and women differ appreciably in their moral reasoning, or that women have a permanently different voice.” For example, researchers have found no evidence that women have a greater desire for or concern with a secure, committed, sexual relationship than do men. Indeed, most women and men equally value these features of intimacy.

Myths about gender differences in the workplace

Nevertheless, it is hard to kill the idea of gender differences in the workplace — that women are oriented to interpersonal relationships and are best suited for working with people, while men are oriented to independent task performance and are best suited for working with things like money, property, and goods. In any form, however, claims that women as opposed to men are “caring” or speak in a “different voice” simply serve to justify society’s current discriminatory allocation of leadership opportunities. 

Thinking that women are “this way” and men are “that way” may be a comfortable habit, but it is a bad habit rooted in gender bias not in reality. People grow and learn; they experience success and failure, joy and disappointment, adventure and frustration. As they do, their sense of the meaning, importance, and role of femininity and masculinity change too. When we think of women and men as different in fundamental ways, we frame both genders’ possibilities for change in far too limited ways.

What really causes conflict at work

Workplaces in traditionally male career fields are operated in accordance with masculine norms, values, and expectations; in other words, these workplaces are highly gendered. Claims that women’s same-gender conflicts are the result of distinctive female personality characteristics are thus flawed because they fail to recognize that the source of women’s conflict at work is the situations into which gendered workplaces force women — not their nature or the way they have been nurtured. These theories are also flawed because they focus exclusively on women’s supposed mutual antagonism while totally ignoring women’s desire for supportive, noncompetitive same-gender relationships. 

Women’s desire to achieve positive same-gender relationships is far more common than their desire to strike out at other women at work. Indeed, seeking ways to nourish and support women’s aspiration for close, powerful, and focused alliances with other women — sisterhood — is a centerpiece of the modern women’s movement. An early example is Robin Morgan’s 1970 book, Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement. The essays in this collection are all concerned with how women, by supporting other women, can combat gender discrimination and sexual exploitation and most importantly, achieve their individual life goals. As journalist and author Sophia A. Nelson put it: “deep inside we all know that we are at our best when we have our ‘sisters’ (biological or not) at our side cheering us on and watching our backs.” And power duos like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss make it clear that women’s strong relationships with other women can make them both better.

Though we disagree with books that claim men and women are fundamentally different, they do contain highly valuable insights into women’s same-gender workplace conflict: discussions of the counterproductive characteristics of women’s same-gender competition, the hurtful nature of their envy and jealousy of other women, and the self-destructive outcomes of internalized misogyny.

But the takeaway should be that when we slip into thinking that women are fundamentally different from men, we are unconsciously supporting the gender-biased characteristics of our workplaces and ignoring the longing for and power of mutually supportive and visible same-gender relations among women at work.

Learn more about women’s conflict at work and the bias that built it in our book It’s Not You, It’s the Workplace.