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Comment by bigDinosaur | Hacker News Reader

It's fairly common for women to come across as aggressive for doing exactly the same things a man would.

The biggest issue I had with female colleagues is not that they were worse than males in any way, but comment like yours. In fact I think on average females are better for the team. I remember I told once told few folks that one female member of the team is bad hire, and the immediate response I got was that I am saying this because she is a female. I might have a bias that I don't know about, but if someone specifically points a single or minority of females to be bad doesn't need to prove they are not sexist.

I think that’s because some women emulate part of what they view as male leadership (aggressive), without also having other aspects of male leaders.

I had a leader who thought it was acceptable to say things like, “hey losers let’s get this work done” through email from her office, trying to emulate a male leader who would say, “hey losers let’s get this work done” and then help physically do the work.

The same thing happens with male leaders who try to emulate the charismatic bully type of leadership too, but fail.

Now that I read it here, I think this is quite true.

When male managers are poor leaders and the workers rebel, valid criticism isn’t silenced with accusations of sexism.

My experience is that bad male leaders either change or move out of the role quickly.

There is often a problem between the feedback loop with men and women about leadership that results in a hostile work environment.

This is because historically aggressiveness is a male attribute, so when it is present in women it stands out and the perception is amplified. It is the same when a woman is as tall as a man, for example.

Is the reverse true too? Female attributes on a male is amplified?

It does seem like things are getting better, but certainly when I was growing up almost any behavior the slightest bit feminine in a male was called out as “gay”. The phrases “act like a man” or “real man” are often not just valorizing masculine traits but admonishing feminine ones. So, I’d say very yes.

Yes - you can look at the long history of feminine men getting bullied, no matter their age. Or the decision for eyeliner-wearing men to not wear it to work. (My spouse carried a polka-dot bag that I bought for a while: He, a man in his 40's, found that coworkers laughed. For a while afterwards, he carried it out of spite).

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