Unpopular Opinion: Female Managers are Dominating
I have had over 8-10 managers in my life in a career spanning over 8 years, 5 of them were female managers and unfortunately the experience with 4 of them were very bad. They’re either micro managers, or power hungry, want to be dominant over male juniors, misuse their power, cannot take any kind of resistance or refusals or disagreement from juniors. I have always heard female managers are more empathetic but unfortunately I’ve faced the opposite. Just wondering, was it just bad luck or is it actually the case? I tried to introspect in this and I found at least 4 points common across all these female managers: 1. They are all from Tier 2/3 Cities 2. They’ve studied in premier institutions IIT,IIMS,Wharton even one of them 3. They either have a younger or elder brother who got more love in the family 4. Their husband is at a higher senior level than them in professional life/career
Omg! Can you pls do a bias free statistics before stating this without any relative references?
How many such cases for male managers you had to how many of them were horrible?
And then are these only female or also male managers also are similar in your team/ field, etc.?
Pls do keep your personal biases at bay. I have seen few men/ male colleagues that are uncomfortable with female bosses. Are you one of them?
This is a platform where these things can be miscontrued and things get very misogynistic. So pls be mindful of stating wholesome experiences and not just skewed and biased ones.
Pls do mention what's your gender, etc. when replying. That also gives some perspective
lime
Student
4 months ago
Not everything has to be about feminism, does it?
Literally read the title "Unpopular Opinion", that already means that female boss' are usually assumed to be more empathetic but OP has had a different experience with them. There are usually no opinions on male managers, some are good some are bad but female managers as he mentioned are generally assumed to be more empathetic and understanding(literally a positive trait in female leads that he mentioned).
And again, an "Opinion" means a statement he's making out his personal life, never did he mention that ALL FEMALE leaders are like that.
How do you do bias free statistics here by the way? He's had horrible experience with 80% of the female managers he's worked with, how would you like to remove the bias?
I do agree, a lot of posts and comments do get misogynistic here, but this isn't one of them.
You literally did not read a single line or try to comprehend a thing OP wrote yet you plugged in the basic few buzzwords like calling OP a misogynist which people love to use so casually.
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I have found females in corporate are much more opportunistic and shrewd than men. They think that is the only way to rise. Yet to encounter an empathetic female in jobs.
Gus
Stealth
4 months ago
Two female managers in 10 years and I promised to myself- "never again". They are the worst. No offense to anyone
Qwerty2398
Stealth
4 months ago
Had two female managers in 10 years. one absolute worst. and another absolute best. The difference between them was 1 was Indian and the other was American (in her 50's). No prize in guessing which was best or which was worst.
Stayed at that company for longer period just because she was very nice.
BiryaniEnthu
Stealth
4 months ago
I think it is not gender led but what leadership style a person follows
My first job had a female boss. She was ruthless, I have cried while on job reporting to her. I have heavy menstruation days and she still wasn't be empathetic even as a female (I had to be running aroundto get work done). 2 years later, we had much better work relationship. The nicest notice period I have served is under her (she even allowed watching movie on work hours)
Then handful of men, some complete &$%£#, some awed with their team management. Like this one would make casually sexist jokes, even disrespecting men - like telling male HR that HR is a female job. The f?!
He would take leaves giving reasons that my aunt is here, my uncles' son in law's grandmother is here while I got a mail asking how soon I can join work while I was suffering from covid.
I have so many such stories of these direct n indirect managers. It really is a personality trait
Bumpy_Stock
Stealth
4 months ago
Yupp. Personality traits like entitlement, narcissism, credit stealing, classism. These are common across, male, female, boomer, millennial, genz, North/South, stranger, relatives, loved ones. At the core, these are selfish people.
StanleyHudson
Stealth
4 months ago
One of my managers (male) asked me to man up when I told him about one of my emotional issues when he asked me in person. He said men arent supposed to make excuses victim card is best suited for women etc and cancelled my sick leaves. I had 3 mental shutdowns that day.
While one if my ex-manager (female) would leave me on blue-tick when I had doubts , and then reprimanded me, sometimes personal remarks, for not understanding stuff (I was an absolute novice back then)
You see,
The point I am trying to make is that managerial roles , regardless of genders, thrive on insensitivity and brute logic.
Thats just something peculiar to the role
I’ve had a female manager once in my career, and she made my life miserable.
She took credit for everything I did, nagged me at work, made sexual comments and jokes about me in public. She had a free ride because of my high quality work that she could claim that was hers.
When I finally resigned, she changed completely. She was very kind, sweet and complimented my work in front of her boss. She even took me out for a drink one night and offered to exchange “physical favours” if I stayed back.
The rest of the notice period was awkward, but I’m so glad I left that company.
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Very different experience here. I’ve had 3 female managers out of 4. Each and every one has been absolutely phenomenal. But I think it also depends on the field of work. In product management you would find lots of women who are really good at what they do and are extremely empathetic.
Paaji
Stealth
4 months ago
High incidences of BPD in women is one cause, possibly also Narcissistic traits too
Absolutely agreed. My manager's were all female except 1. All were micro managers and power hungry. They were extremely rude, not empathetic at all .
One of my female colleagues was pregnant in the 6 or 7th month. The situation was so bad, she had to resign because of this person. And then this manager was within her limits because of this incident.
Umadbro
Stealth
4 months ago
I have had one female manager and she was the most sorted manager i ever had. Incredibly smart, and could handle blowups well (especially inter-team dynamics), and a very good mentor. Very solution oriented. Got assigned to her early in my career, and changed my perspective. I didn’t adapt all of her mannerisms when j became a manager, but some aspects were hugely beneficial.
DarKnight
Stealth
4 months ago
That’s incredible, wish I do come across one in my career.
Umadbro
Stealth
4 months ago
Thing is i feel most people are bad managers. Regardless of gender. There are far and few in between, who help. Rare. Most introverts and nerds become helpful managers i think.
spacecowboy
Stealth
4 months ago
I’ve noticed they cannot take criticism at all. They take it personally and make sure you regret critisising them
No offense to anyone
Even though I don't want to generalize anything
But whatever is mentioned in the post is hard truth.
I encountered 3 managers in my 7 years of career and after that am afraid to take up a job where the manager is a woman.
I respect women a lot but can't change facts , Many of my friends also had similar experiences. Even many girls also said the same to me.
Am sure there are good Female managers but they might be pretty rare or unfortunately many of us didn't get to meet them.
Unpopular comment here!!
With my experience of 9 years in IT, I have personally worked with 6-7 supervisors and managers.
There were male supervisors who treated women as if they knew nothing and passed comments like - "oh, she got that promotion through contacts" and were jealous, and I have seen women supervisors who tried to dominate and targeted teammates even if they did a great job at workplace. Few managers( both male and female) were understanding, I am forever grateful for them for being nice to me 🥲.
Few micromanaged.
It all depends on your luck on the type of manager you end up with. 🥶
There is nothing sexist about this post, OP has had an experience with a certain sample set and has drawn his conclusions and his corroborating this with the larger group.
Hence I just want to add to the experience logging, from my personal experience, I ve had Exceptionally good male managers, Absolutely shitty dont-fucking-waste-oxygen male managers, mediocre female managers, and currently my female senior manager is probably the only person that has made me feel inspired in 11yrs of work-ex. She is empathetic, logically sound, knows the work like the back of her hand and has been super supportive of my career journey that I always do my best for her.
I'm sorry you ve had a bad manager who happened to be a female, irrespective of gender it's a very traumatic experience to work with a toxic person day in day out, the best course of action would be is to remove yourself from that place and switch to another project at the earliest, else you will have a serious dent in confidence that will take long to heal.
I've had female managers and leads before and they were the best. My wife however has same complaints as you.
My first two managers were female. First one was the absolute best, so empathetic and supportive of me when I was having issues - I’d be motivated to do well for her get awards, and do overtime and weekends sometimes whenever she needed to meet deadlines all because she was so helpful and cut me slack.
2nd one used to give me too much work and wouldn’t realise it’s like 9pm 😒. Would stick me with difficult work because I could do it well smh. Not as empathetic but still couldn’t say she was bad.
I had one female manager, who fought for me and requested remote work for me since I had a medical concern. Note this was back before covid, when remote work was never a topic of discussion. I ended up working remotely for 5 months and I recovered physically from my injury.
I had another female manager who ruined my life. She once openly said to me "So what, you are a guy, you can work late nights. Atleast we have responsibilities at home".
Worst part was the 2nd one was rude to both men and women in the team. Thankfully, the project got dismantled within 3 months by client and I went to different project.
Have just 5 years of experience but even I sensed that in general. I feel what you said is true upto a certain extent. We are are human beings at the end and made differently. Cheers!!
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