Kelly was a bright woman in her early 30s: whip-smart, well qualified, ambitious─and confused. Even a little frightened.
She worked for a female partner in a big consulting firm. Her boss was so solicitous that Kelly hoped the woman─one of just a few top female partners─might become her mentor. But she began to feel that something was wrong. In meetings, her boss would dismiss her ideas without discussion and even cut her off in mid-sentence. Kelly started to hear about meetings to which she wasn't invited but felt she should be. She was excluded from her boss's small circle of confidants.
What confused Kelly was that she was otherwise doing well at the firm. She felt respected and supported by the other senior partners. She had just one problem, but it was a big one. One of the male partners pulled her aside and confirmed Kelly's suspicions: Her boss had been suggesting to others that Kelly might be happier in a different job, one 'more in line with her skills.'
I met Kelly while I was conducting research on women in the workplace. She was trying to puzzle through what she had done wrong and what to do about it. (To protect the privacy of Kelly and others in the study, I refer to them here by first names only.) I wasn't sure Kelly had done anything wrong, and I said so. As I told her, 'You might have met a queen bee.'
Having spent decades working in psychology, a field heavily populated by highly competitive women, I had certainly seen the queen bee before: The female boss who not only has zero interest in fostering the careers of women who aim to follow in her footsteps, but who might even actively attempt to cut them off at the pass.
The term 'queen bee syndrome' was coined in the 1970s, following a study led by researchers at the University of Michigan─Graham Staines, Toby Epstein Jayaratne and Carol Tavris─who examined promotion rates and the impact of the women's movement on the workplace. In a 1974 article in Psychology Today, they presented their findings, based on more than 20,000 responses to reader surveys in that magazine and Redbook. They found that women who achieved success in male-dominated environments were at times likely to oppose the rise of other women. This occurred, they argued, largely because the patriarchal culture of work encouraged the few women who rose to the top to become obsessed with maintaining their authority.
Four decades later, the syndrome still thrives, given new life by the mass ascent of women to management positions. This generation of queen bees is no less determined to secure their hard-won places as alpha females. Far from nurturing the growth of younger female talent, they push aside possible competitors by chipping away at their self-confidence or undermining their professional standing. It is a trend thick with irony: The very women who have complained for decades about unequal treatment now perpetuate many of the same problems by turning on their own.
A 2007 survey of 1,000 American workers released by the San Francisco-based Employment Law Alliance found that 45% of respondents had been bullied at the office─verbal abuse, job sabotage, misuse of authority, deliberate destruction of relationships─and that 40% of the reported bullies were women. In 2010, the Workplace Bullying Institute, a national education and advocacy group, reported that female bullies directed their hostilities toward other women 80% of the time─up 9% since 2007. Male bullies, by contrast, were generally equal-opportunity tormentors.
A 2011 survey of 1,000 working women by the American Management Association found that 95% of them believed they were undermined by another woman at some point in their careers. According to a 2008 University of Toronto study of nearly 1,800 U.S. employees, women working under female supervisors reported more symptoms of physical and psychological stress than did those working under male supervisors.
Something is clearly amiss in the professional sisterhood.
Erin, another participant in my own study, was a food writer at a glossy magazine. Her supervisor, Jane, seemed out to get her from day one─though never quite to her face. Jane liked playing hot and cold: One day she would pull Erin close to gossip about another colleague; the next she would scream at her for not following through on a task Erin hadn't known she was expected to perform.
Erin eventually found out that Jane was bad-mouthing her to mutual contacts in the food and restaurant industry. Jane would casually slip barbs into business conversations, telling others, for example, that Erin had engaged in an affair with a married man (she hadn't) or was giving more favorable reviews to restaurant owners who were her friends (she wasn't).
Jane's campaign against Erin wasn't much more than mean-spirited gossiping, but Erin felt that it caused her peers to think of her differently and certainly made her professional life more difficult. But how could she lodge an official complaint? 'What would it say?' Erin asked me. 'Jane is talking about me behind my back?' At various points, Erin thought the only way to fight back was to play along and start trash-talking Jane. But was that really the solution?
As the old male-dominated workplace has been transformed, many have hoped that the rise of female leaders would create a softer, gentler kind of office, based on communication, team building and personal development. But instead, some women are finding their professional lives dominated by high school 'mean girls' all grown up: women with something to prove and a precarious sense of security.
What makes these queen bees so effective and aggravating is that they are able to exploit female vulnerabilities that men may not see, using tactics that their male counterparts might never even notice. Like Jane's gossiping about Erin's personal life. Or when Kelly's boss would comment on her outfit: 'Who are you trying to impress today?' Or not-so-gently condescend: 'Did you take your smart pill today, sweetie?' Their assaults harm careers and leave no fingerprints.
That is one reason many victims never see such attacks coming─and are powerless to prevent them. In Kelly's case, she had assumed her female boss might want to help foster her growth out of some sense of female solidarity. Erin had specifically sought out working at the magazine because she admired Jane's writing and wanted to learn from her. Why wouldn't Jane be eager to teach? It is women, after all, who are hastening the table-pounding male bullies toward obsolescence.
But both Kelly and Erin's superiors seem to have viewed the women under them not as comrades in arms but as threats to be countered. In a world where there are still relatively few women in positions of power─just 2% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 16% of boards of directors, as noted in Deborah Rhode and Barbara Kellerman's book 'Women and Leadership'─it is an understandable assumption that the rise of one would mean the ouster of another. One for one, instead of one plus one.
Though it is getting easier to be a professional woman, it is by no means easy. Some women─especially in industries that remain male-dominated─assume that their perches may be pulled from beneath them at any given moment (and many times, they are indeed encouraged to feel this way). Made to second-guess themselves, they try to ensure their own dominance by keeping others, especially women, down.
The result is a distinctive strain of negative leadership traits─less overtly confrontational than their domineering male counterparts but bullying just the same. Comments on appearance or dress are part of their repertoire─something that would be seen more obviously as harassment when coming from a man─as are higher, sometimes even unreasonable, expectations for performance. Women who have risen in male-dominated fields may want to tell themselves that their struggle and success were unique. As a result they sometimes treat the performance of females who follow as never quite good enough.
It cuts both ways, though: Women aren't always the best employees to other women either. Female subordinates can show less respect and deference to female bosses than to their male bosses.
A 2007 Syracuse University study published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology found that women are critical of female bosses who are not empathetic. They also tend to resent female bosses who adopt a brusque and assertive management style, even as they find it perfectly acceptable for male bosses. And so they question and push back, answering authority with attitude.
One woman I encountered in my research, Amanda, faced this problem when she began a new job as a vice president at a Manhattan ad agency. The role was her first in management and included overseeing three women who were her age or younger. She knew she was qualified for the position, but from the very first day, Amanda had a difficult time feeling that she had their respect, or even their attention. Though deferential and solicitous to her male colleagues, they openly questioned Amanda's decisions. They went above her head, made comments about her wardrobe and even refused to say good morning and good night. She felt like she was back in high school, trying to break into an elite clique.
Amanda tried various tactics: being overly authoritative, being their 'friend.' Eventually she stopped trying to get them to respond or encouraging them to do their jobs as directed. Instead, she fired all three.
Queen bees are creatures of circumstance, encircling potential rivals in much the same way as the immune system attacks a foreign body. Female bosses are expected to be 'softer' and 'gentler' simply because they are women, even though such qualities are not likely the ones that got them to where they are. In the more cutthroat precincts of American achievement, women don't reach the top by bringing in doughnuts in the morning.
Men use fear as a tool of advancement. Why shouldn't women do the same? Until top leadership positions are as routinely available to women as they are to men, freezing out the competition will remain a viable survival strategy.
30出头的凯莉(Kelly)是一名优秀的女性：她思维敏捷、工作称职、有进取心，但她感觉很困惑，甚至有点被吓到了。
凯莉在一家大咨询公司工作，上司是一名女性合伙人。凯莉的老板──公司里仅有的几名高层女性合伙人之一──工作非常卖力，凯莉希望她可以成为自己的导师。但是她开始感到有些地方有点不对劲了。在会议上，老板对她的想法置之不理，甚至在凯莉一句话说到一半时打断她。凯莉听说了有一些会议本来应该有她参加，但是却没人通知她去。她被隔绝在老板的心腹小圈子之外了。
让凯莉感到不解的原因是，在其他方面，她在公司里几乎是顺风顺水。她感觉自己得到了其他高级合伙人的尊重和支持。她只遇到了这一个问题，但这却是个大问题。一名男性合伙人私下里向凯莉证实了她所怀疑的事：凯莉的老板曾向其他一些人暗示，凯莉如果换个工作可能会更开心，一个更符合她能力的工作。
更多观点文章我是在从事职场女性研究的过程中遇到凯莉的。她当时正努力思考自己做错了什么，该如何应对目前的情况。（为了保护凯莉和研究中其他人的隐私，我只使用她们的名字而隐去了她们的姓。）我不确定凯莉做错了什么事，我告诉她：“你可能遇到了一个蜂王。”
我从事心理学研究已经有几十年了，这个领域里有很多非常好胜的女性，所以我当然也遇到过蜂王：这种女老板对培养那些以她们为榜样的女性毫无兴趣，甚至可能会想尽办法阻断后者的路。
“蜂王综合症”(queen bee syndrome)一词诞生于上世纪70年代，此前，密歇根大学(University of Michigan)的研究人员斯泰恩斯(Graham Staines)、贾亚拉特纳(Toby Epstein Jayaratne)和塔佛瑞斯(Carol Tavris)对升职率和女性的行为在职场中的影响进行了研究。1974年，他们在《今日心理学》(Psychology Today)上发表了研究成果。这项研究的基础是这份杂志以及《Redbook》杂志的超过两万份的读者调查反馈。研究发现，在男性占主导地位的环境中，成功的女性有时可能会反对其他女性的升职。他们说，这主要是因为在职场的等级文化的氛围下，升至顶层的女性往往执迷于保持自己的权威。
40年过去了，“蜂王综合症”仍然屡见不鲜，而且由于大量女性晋升至管理职位而获得了新生。这一代的蜂王同样下定决心保住自己好不容易得来的位置。为了赶走可能的竞争者，面对更年轻的女性人才，女老板们不是培养她们，而是打击她们的自信，暗中破坏她们的职业地位。这个现象充满了讽刺意味，因为那些几十年来抱怨受到不平等待遇的女性现在却在犯同样的错误。
旧金山的就业法联盟(Employment Law Alliance)2007年对1,000名美国职场人士所做的调查显示，大约45%的受访者在职场受到过欺负，包括上司恶语伤人、破坏工作成果、滥用职权、故意破坏人际关系，其中40%的职场恶霸是女性。2010年，全国性的教育和咨询机构职场暴力学会(Workplace Bullying Institute)的一份报告指出，女性恶霸在80%的时间里会针对其他女性，比2007年的比例增长了9%。相比之下，男性恶霸则对男女下属“一视同仁”。
美国管理协会(American Management Association) 2011年对1,000名职场女性所做的调查发现，95%的受访者认为她们在职场都有过另一名女性对其暗中使坏的遭遇。2008年多伦多大学(University of Toronto)对将近1,800名美国职场人士的调查发现，与在男性主管的手下工作相比，为女性主管工作的女性承受了更多的身体和心理上的压力。
职场女性之间显然缺少了一些姐妹情谊。
C.J. Burton/Corbis尽管蜂王们不像男性领导那样过分地强势，但是同样恃强凌弱。我的研究中的另一位参与者艾琳(Erin)是一家时尚杂志的美食作家。她的主管简(Jane)似乎从她第一天上班就开始找她麻烦，不过没有当面让她下不来台。简对艾琳总是忽冷忽热：今天她会把艾琳叫过来八卦另一位同事，第二天就会因为艾琳没有完成一项工作而冲艾琳大吵大嚷，但艾琳根本不知道这是她的工作。
艾琳后来发现，简在她们在食品和餐馆行业的共同熟人面前说自己的坏话。简在谈公事时会漫不经心地说一些艾琳的坏话，比如告诉其他人艾琳和一个已婚男人交往（艾琳根本没有这么做），或者说艾琳给自己认识的餐厅老板给予更好的评价（艾琳也没有这样做）。
简针对艾琳的行为基本上只是恶意的造谣，但是艾琳认为，这已经导致同事对自己另眼相待，她的职场生活也因此变得更加困难。但是如何才能提出正式的投诉呢。艾琳问我：“我该怎么说呢？说简在我背后说我坏话？”在很多时候，艾琳认为唯一的反击方式就是加入游戏，也去说简的坏话。但是这真的是解决办法吗？
由于传统的男性主导的办公场所已经发生改变，许多人希望女性领导者的出现会带来一个更轻松、更具亲和力的办公环境，这样的办公场所的基调应该是沟通、团队建设和每个人的发展。然而事实恰恰相反，一些女性发现，高中时的“坏女孩”已经长大成人，正在主宰她们的职业生涯：这些女人想要证明点什么，而且非常缺乏安全感。
蜂王们的行动如此有效而且变本加厉，是因为她们利用了男性可能没有看到的女性的弱点，并且使用男性从来不会注意的策略。比如简八卦艾琳的个人生活，以及凯莉的老板评论她的着装：“你今天想勾搭谁啊？”或者假装关心但语中带刺：“亲爱的，你今天吃了聪明药了吗？”这种语言上的侮辱危害着对方的职业发展，但却可以不留痕迹。
相关阅读这就是许多受害者无法预测且预防这种攻击的一个原因。在凯莉的案例中，由于同为女性，她想当然地认为她的女老板想要培养自己成长。因为欣赏简的作品，艾琳特意找了在这家杂志社的工作，目的就是要向她学习。简为什么会不愿意教她呢？要知道，正是这些优秀的女性让喜欢拍桌子以示权威的男性逐渐被淘汰的啊。
凯莉和艾琳的上司似乎没有将下属看作同事，而是看作需要提防的威胁。如今，掌握权力的女性仍然相对仅占少数，在《财富》500强(Fortune 500)企业中，女性CEO的比例仅为2%，女董事的比例仅为16%。正如罗德(Deborah Rhode)和柯勒曼(Barbara Kellerman)在《女性与领导力》(Women and Leadership)一书中指出的那样，认为一个人的上升意味着另一个人被踢出去的想法是可以理解的。在职场，是一对一的竞争，而不是一加一的双赢。
尽管成为职业女性比以往要容易，但做一名职业女性仍然很难。尤其是在仍然由男性主导的领域，一些女性认为，她们的位置可能会随时被下属取代（许多情况下，她们确实被鼓动这样去想）。她们不得不预测可能出现的威胁，她们努力通过打压其他人，尤其是女性，来确保自己的优势地位。
结果就产生了一系列的消极领导力的表现──尽管她们不像男性领导那样过分地强势，但是同样恃强凌弱。评价下属的外表或着装是她们的武器之一（如果是男性上司这么做，一定会被认为是性骚扰），此外，还有对下属的工作表现提出更高、有时甚至不可理喻的期待。在男性占主导地位的领域崛起的女性可能想要告诉自己，自己的奋斗和成功是独一无二的。因此，在她们看来，女下属的表现永远都不够好。
不过另一方面，对女老板来说，女下属往往也不是最好的员工。女员工对女老板的尊重和顺从可能会低于对男老板的尊重和顺从。
雪城大学(Syracuse University)2007年发布在《职业和组织心理学杂志》(Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology)的研究成果指出，女性会对不能站在他人立场考虑问题的女老板产生不满。她们往往还对采取粗鲁和强势管理风格的女老板有抵触，但如果男老板这样做，她们却可以接受。因此她们质疑和顶撞女老板的决定，面对女老板的权威，她们充满了抵触情绪。
我在研究中遇到的另一名女性阿曼达(Amanda)就遇到了这个问题，她在曼哈顿的一家广告公司担任副总裁，这是她第一次担任管理职位，她需要管理三名女性，这三名女性都和她同龄或者比她年轻。她知道，她能胜任这一职位，但是从第一天开始，阿曼达就感到她难以获得她们的尊重甚至她们的注意力。尽管这三名下属对男性同事非常恭敬和谨慎，但她们公开质疑阿曼达的决定。她们骑在阿曼达的头上，对她的着装评头论足，甚至不向她说早安和晚安。阿曼达感觉自己回到了高中，好像在努力进入一个精英小团体一样。
阿曼达尝试各种策略：展示权威，以及尝试成为她们的朋友。最终她不再指望获得她们的回应或鼓励她们按照要求工作。阿曼达把三个人解雇了。
蜂王是环境的产物，它们包围潜在的竞争对手，就像免疫系统攻击外来入侵物一样。由于女性的性别特点，人们普遍认为女性老板会更加软弱、温和，但这些特质不太可能让她们获得现在的职位。在美国激烈的竞争环境中，女性是不会因为在早上为同事带甜甜圈而晋升到最高职位的。
男性将威慑力作为自己上升的工具。女性为什么就不应该这么做呢？在男女拥有同等机会获得最高领导职位之前，吓跑竞争者仍然是一个可行的生存策略。
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