Gallup conducted an interesting business poll here. You’re free to read it but here’s what really stood out to me:
- Most men, specifically 51%, when asked if they’d rather have a male or female boss, stated they had no preference.
- Most women would prefer to have a male boss. 40% of women would choose a male boss over a female one. Only 27%(!) said they’d prefer a female boss.
- Men and women who already have a female boss are as likely to prefer a female boss over a male one. (Could this just be humans’ natural need to maintain the status quo? I don’t know. You be the judge.)
- People more likely to prefer a female boss are more likely to end up with a female boss. (Isn’t that interesting?)
- The more left-wing you are in your political beliefs, the more likely you are to prefer a female boss. (No surprise there.)
- The younger you are, the more likely you are to prefer a male boss, though not by much. (A reflection of today’s fatherlessness with young men? Again, you be the judge.)
The most interesting fact is the second one, which states that most women would prefer a male boss. As a business consultant with over 20 years of experience, I can confirm this is true. Most women in the workplace would vastly prefer a male boss to a female boss. Remember this inconvenient fact the next time you hear a woman screaming about how women don’t get paid as much as men, or how there aren’t as many female managers or CEOs as men. Men are not the only reason for these things. Women themselves are strong contributors.
It’s the exact same thing when women complain that “men” force an impossible cultural body standard onto women. No. Statistically it is women in Hollywood and the fashion industry who force these things on women, not men. We’re guys. We’ll fuck anything. Most front-line gatekeepers in these industries are women, not men. Women contribute as much, or more, to these stick-skinny body  standards as men.
Women in Hollywood and the fashion industry want to see flat-chested, no-hips, super-skinny women in movies and magazines and on catwalks, and women in the workplace would rather have male bosses, whereas men mostly don’t care what gender their boss is. Never, ever forget this.
Gender In The Workplace
I’ve had a diverse business career as a consultant. I’ve worked with literally hundreds of companies, thousands of people, in scores of industries, all over the world, over decades of time. From my personal experience, I can tell you with 100% accuracy that the following is generally true:
- Men generally work well with other men.
- Women generally work well with men.
- Women generally work poorly with other women.
(For you nitpickers, remember I used the word generally four times. Yes, there are some offices full of women that do work very well. These are the exceptions to the rule.)
Women already know all this. Though they don’t like to say this out loud, women know damn well that if they have to work with other women, there will more drama, conflict, oneupsmanship, snotty attitudes, fragile emotions, resentment, grudges, and bullshit than if they have to work with men. This is why most women prefer to work with men and have male bosses. None of this is men’s fault.
When you’re a woman, guys are (generally) easier to work with. Even if you get into a huge argument at work with a guy, after everything calms down he forgets about it and gets back to work. No big deal. But get into a big argument with a woman at work, and now she “hates” you “forever”, and will actively or passively work to avoid you or in extreme cases, sabotage your work. Women know this. None of this is men’s fault.
Men can and certainly do get emotional at work. No question. But when a woman gets emotional at work, the damage she causes around her tends to last longer and cause more disruption in the workplace. Men’s workplace drama tends to be in shorter bursts and is more manageable. A woman’s is generally not so. For example, the only time in my entire business career when I had a boss scream at me loudly during a meeting and then storm out of the meeting, in the middle of the meeting, leaving all of us confused as to what to do, was the only time I ever had a female boss. Women know about these emotional outbursts from other women in the workplace. None of this is men’s fault.
Bosses in the corporate world will tell you that women tend to be late to work more often than men. Women call in sick twice as much as men. Women know this. They know if they have a female co-worker or boss, it’s more likely they’ll have to pick up the slack than if they were working with a man. None of this is men’s fault.
The Reverse
Fortunately I’m a man, which means I can work with women without dealing with most of these problems, since women tend to work very well with men. I have said before that I personally enjoy working with women and I find that many women are extremely effective in the workplace when they want to be and when they are motivated strongly enough. Some of the classiest, smartest, most successful and effective business people with incomes of $100,000 or more were women.
However! These were women who behaved like men in the workplace, not women. These were not women who were always calling in sick, always on the phone with their kids during business hours, always taking off at 5:00pm on the dot so they wouldn’t be late picking up kids at daycare, or women who took months off work to go have baby.
No, these were women who were in early in the morning, stayed focused all day, worked late in to the evening, never took maternity leave, almost never took vacations, and did that for 20 or 30 years straight. In other words, they were women who acted like men. When women focus on their careers in a very real way, they do extremely well and are very impressive. As a matter of fact, I’m almost tempted to say that when a woman focuses on her job like a man does, she may even be more likely than a man to hit the high income levels. This is because, at least in my experience, the ratio of women who try hard at their careers and really make it is quite high as compared to men, who often give up, get lazy, or get distracted from their career goals at some point (like when they get married!).
The problem is, very few women put in this kind of career effort. And they know it, and they know it of the other women they work with. Thus the lower income levels of women, and thus the desire of women to have a male boss.
