Another utopian dream ruined

Samantha Brick had a vision: "a female-only company with happy, harmonious workers benefiting from an absence of men". Her experience wasn't quite in line with her hopes:

Over in one corner sat Alice, a strong-minded 27-year-old who always said what she thought, regardless of how much it might hurt someone else. In the other corner was Sarah, a thirtysomething high-flier who would stand up for herself momentarily — then burst into tears and run for the ladies.

Their simmering fight lasted hours, egged on by spectators taking sides and fuelling the anger. Sometimes other girls would join in, either heckling aggressively or huddling defensively in the toilets. It might sound like a scene from a tawdry reality show such as Big Brother, but the truth is a little more prosaic: it was just a normal morning in my office.

The venomous women were supposedly the talented employees I had headhunted to achieve my utopian dream — a female-only company with happy, harmonious workers benefiting from an absence of men.

It was an idealistic vision swiftly shattered by the nightmare reality: constant bitchiness, surging hormones, unchecked emotion, attention-seeking and fashion rivalry so fierce it tore my staff apart.

When I read the other day that Sienna Miller had said there was no such thing as 'the Sisterhood', I knew what she meant.

One of the most common features of "utopian" thinking is that humanity is somehow perfectible . . . whether by moral suasion or by physical force. Just because an office is all-male or all-female doesn't magically imbue it with some sort of mystical shield against all the standard human behavioural quirks — in too many cases, it actually magnifies them, as Samantha found in her experiment.

The Fark.com thread included some wonderfully illustrative comments (along with the usual dreck, invective, and vented spleen):

FredaDeStilleto:
Women can be vicious, spiteful creatures hellbent on righting any wrong whether real or imagined. Insults become an art-form, often missed by any male within hearing range ( "I love your dress. I had the same one last year."; "Smith? That name is familiar. Oh yes, my housekeeper was a "Smith". Was that your mother?")
BTW. I'm female

SusanIvanova:
Of course women in general are not inherently more co-operative and nice than men, especially in groups. But this is worse — it's women in television, one of the three most backstabby and superficial industries in existence. Did she really think kindness and a nuturing environment were likely to spontaneously appear in the depraved whorepit that it television?

brigid_fitch:
I'm in sales, which tends to have a LOT of female top-performers but very few female managers. All of my reps are female and I'm the only female manager in the entire NY Tri-state area. The other 11 are men. With the exception of the one crazy biatch who keeps going off her meds, my team gets along fine with each other & everyone else in the office. I interact perfectly well with my male colleagues. The only time any of them were uncomfortable around me was our first manager's meeting, where someone cursed and immediately apologized to me for swearing. I just told him, "What — do you think I f*cking care if you curse?" That was that.
Hire people with a balanced personality (for the record, I did NOT hire the crazy biatch) and you'll be fine. Hire superficial, catty harpies, and reap what you sow.

Scrophulous Barking Duck:
My personal experience is that mixed offices with both female and male staff and managers works best. That said, it sounds like the woman's real problem was that she was a lousy manager and business person.