Women ONLY workforce

I've worked in both female only office environments and mixed offices. I would never work in an all female office again as long as I live! Much nicer atmosphere and camaraderie when men and women work together in my experience.

I've worked in mainly male, female or a mix of both. I've found that both sexes are equally to blame for bad behaviour. Men can be vicious and have no hesitation about stabbing each other in the back if it promotes themselves. Perhaps women are more subtle about it.
My DH used to say that sometimes with the men there'd been a 'nose to nose' job! Men are more direct, certainly.

I agree with you BLUEGAL and other posters. I couldn't think of anything worse, than a completely female workforce. I went to an all girls school, that was enough!!

gillybob - thank you. What a fascinating website.

I have been bullied twice at work, both times by women to the point where my union negotiated an exit. When I came up against someone else with the same ideas, I left.

I would not like to work in an all-female environment, any more than I would travel in a women-only train compartment. I remember them on trains years ago - weren't they considered dangerous as a passenger had no where to go if a situation became uncomfortable?

Paraphrasing what others have said, IMO it is not the gender that matters but the person. You are there to do a job, not select a life partner - although that can happen! When taking part in interview panels I would look for ability to do the job, not 'must be male' or 'must be female', and when being interviewed myself I have considered whether I would be comfortable working with these people. In fact I refused one job as the department head came across as a wimp and I felt I would not be supported in my position.

Banter is fine if everyone is comfortable with it but bullying and any sort of harassment is entirely different and should not be tolerated in any environment.

Thanks gillybob !

Going off slightly at a tangent - most office staff tend to be women. One lady who worked in our office told me she was once a member of the typing pool for a big company. She became pregnant, and her (male ) boss made her go and work in a room on her own - he said it might be catching!
(True, honest.)

There used to be plenty of all female workplaces, the nursing profession, midwifery, teaching in girls' schools, working in parts of the cloth and clothing industry, have you ever heard of a male overlock sempstress? I haven't. Insitutional kitchens, except in male prisons - the list is endless.
In some of them there were objectional women in others there were not.

Men, however, liked to think that the all female place of work was pure hell, because they didn't understand that women talk about other things and make fun of other things than men do.

Most of the "bitchiness" I have encountered has been caused by women feeling that men looked down on them, or kept them back in firms where men and women were supposedly doing the same job (but at two different rates of pay).

The other side of the coin is that the language used in an all male workplace is still offensive to most women of my generation, as was the way the spoke of women. Most of it was just talk, and anyone who like me has worked in a female dominated environment knows very well what we called our DHs and all other men on occasion!

To my mind refusing to employ a well-qualified person just because he is a he, or she is a she, is just as much discrimination as refusing to employ someone because of the colour of their skin, their religious or political convictions, or their sexual preferences.

Greyduster. I agree with you.
Many years ago, in my working days and with management and buyer experience , I applied for a management position within a well known chain store .I was interviewed by a woman who I was later to discover was a director of that company One of the questions I was asked was where do you see yourself in five years time were you to be given this position Boldly, no doubt feeling over confident, I replied 'where you are sitting'. No. I did not get the job. Fortunately for me the position was again up for grabs a year later. This time the interviewer was a man.I got the job and was with the company for twenty two years . Not as a director ! but the trips abroad which came with the job I could not fault.

Nothing can be more wearisome than office politics! Having said that, I worked with many great men and women over the years. Men can be just as competitive with each other as women. When it comes to tactics, I encountered women who were downright draconian. The best person I've ever worked for was a gay male.

Bluegal

Hear Hear

I had to retire early because of bullying by a manager and her posse(all female)

I live in a retirement complex there is a small group of women who are in their 80s and 9os and everyone avoids them like the plague.

Hope this helps NotTooOld

www.ted.com/talks

Primrose, what's Ted, please?

Like gillybob I worked in an all male engineering environment for 22 years and had never had any female colleagues to chat to until we closed the business and I went to work in a mixed office - mostly women. I experienced bullying from the woman immediately above me who had been there for years - she made me feel worthless and far from training me to do the job resulted in me leaving 6 months later. I did however enjoy the company of the other folks in the office but there was a lot of gossiping between both sexes about other colleagues so I don't think it's just women.

I remember some years ago a woman went on Dragons Den and wanted funding for an all women's building team. She was asked about the equality legislation and, after a bit of probing, she came up with the answer of employing men too. She didn't seem to get that that changed what she was putting forward as her selling point.

I think you expect more from a women. They would be on your side. So it's more disappointing when they are nasty to you in the work place. We imagine women are nurturing and it's a shock when they aren't. But men can be underhand also so it's the person not the gender.

Men “ bitch” about each other just as much as some women do, believe me ! We all just need to learn to deal accordingly with any adverse personalities wherever we go, as Jane10 stated “ that’s life”.

I have usually worked in mixed teams, but one of my favourites was a mainly male team with just a couple of girls. It was great - we went out on Friday lunchtimes to the local pub where we were treated just as "two of the lads", playing darts, being bought pints.

I believe women will protest everything, until they are phased out by the sex robots, and gadgets that cook and clean and men will just have each other for company.

What is wrong with people that they cannot get along?

The NHS is notorious for bullying, just as schools are, any institution seems to have the same problem, sadly is seems to be human nature does not fit us for working within hierarchies.

It is what it is and we have to be aware and develop thicker skins and better coping mechanisms.

The only all-female company I can think of was FI Group and that changed after the sex discrimination act in the 1970s. I think it was around 1% men until then. They wrote computer software, including the flight box recorder programs for Concorde. If you have not aware of the founder, Stephanie Shirley, I can really recommend her Ted talk. An inspiring woman.

I can't imagine how any private sector employer could possibly want to encourage an all female workforce anyway, especially if the women are of child bearing age. It must play havoc with the work rotas not to mention the potential for several very long absences.

I've shared staff rooms with both lovely men and lovely women. Any agro was caused by the members who didn't pull their weight in what was a pretty stressed environment. Some of those were women and some were men. We got through it with gallows humour, lots of banter and much discrete support for colleagues who needed it. I don't think gender really entered into it. The idea of an all-women work force reminds me of the recent call for all-women train carriages. That fell flat, didn't it?

For the first few years of my career I worked in predominantly female environments, but I never experienced the bitchiness that is spoken of here; it was just cosy and rather dull. I much preferred working in a male /female environment, and when I did experience bitchiness, (rarely) it came from either sex. I hardly experienced any sexual harassment (what a dull life I must have led) but I did experience some mild bullying and ageist harassment towards the end of my career.

Well maybe we will have to agree to disagree on this one. It's been a long time since I worked with any women at all. I Miss female company . My comments are based on other female relatives various experiences .