I wrote the book WORKING WITH MEAN GIRLS to ensure that women who need support can begin to identify some responses that they would be comfortable to undertake in order to cope with a range of bitches in the workplace. We all may not be able to ‘give it back’ or meet toe to toe, as some people may recommend. Many women who come for counselling need some strategies for coping that are consistent with who they are and how they function. Self-protection can take many forms, and one form is harm minimization.
While some of the 8 Types identified may share some behaviours with bully girls, others don’t. A particular difference is that mean girls may not have any power or control and may not engage in activity that may cause physical or mental harm. Definitions and meaning are important when I speak with other women.
Semantics may be pivotal to this topic. Let us consider bitches, bullies, and – to quote Elizabeth Markham, a thirtysomething e trainer and writer – battleaxes. Let’s hear more about Battleaxes from Elizabeth…
BITCH BULLY AND BATTLE AXE by Elizabeth Markham
She’s a battleaxe; a senior administrator who is often called the ‘door bitch’ behind her back because she controls access to the CEO. She’s a tough, uncompromising woman who keeps the person in charge of the company organised and prepared. And everyone hates her. They despise the power she has to get in their way, and they mock the pride she takes in her role, and the way she suns herself in the reflected power of her boss. Yet, those things that people can’t stand about the battle axe relate to her gender in only one way: there are no men in these roles.
Like so many situations in which women are labelled as bitches unbalanced gender ratios play their part. Look at the door bitch, standing outside pubs and clubs whose job it is to turn the inappropriate away. The perception that women in these jobs are harder on the punters than male bouncers has made door bitch the standard term for a female bouncer but are women in club security tougher than men?
Some women are bullies. Workplace bullying, in my opinion, is gender blind so there is no surprise that there are women who get off on exercising their power over others. Bullies revel in the put down, a raised voice, and deliberate undermining as tools to get what they want. The only difference in bullying between men and women is in the details, not the intent or the reasons.
So, our battle axe might be a bully but most often when I hear a woman called a battle axe it is because she is in a position of power…”
