Mean Girls at Work: Physical Attractiveness; Part I of II

Attention women who work in offices: There are mean girls there! And you may be the next target of a female office bully.

Luckily, there are ways to deal with this subset of office bullying behavior, and even win without compromising. This sort of behavior in some respects is nothing new — envy, jealousy and fear have turned many girls and women mean over time and probably will continue to do so.

However, when this behavior enters the workplace, it can have serious consequences to the target’s emotional, physical and vocational life.

Much has been published recently on the topic of bullying behavior that occurs in offices. Google “work bullies,” and you’ll get back a slew of results on the topic, from what the phenomenon is about and tips for dealing with it.

In the standard scenario, the perpetrator is often a superior, the target a subordinate. While the bully may be male or female, the target is female over half the time, notes Melissa Dylan in an August 2007 online article.

Out of context, the most common bullying behaviors displayed by the perpetrator whether male or female are shocking but reminiscent of those mean girls in ninth grade we all remember.

In an essay published in the February 2007 “Communication Currents,” a publication of the National Communication Association, bullying is noted to run “the gamut of hostile communication and behavior and can consist of excluding and ignoring certain workers, throwing things and destroying work, public humiliation and embarrassment, screaming and swearing, and even occasionally assault.”

Within context, viewed through the office lens, these behaviors are usually part of a larger culture of aggression and domination operating within the company. As such, those working in the office normalize the behavior, which serves to perpetuate it as well as cause the victims to stay silent or find ways to covertly resist.

How can such behaviors take place in workplaces where so many protections are offered employees against discrimination, harassment and hostile work environments? It may be due to the subtle nature of the bullying behavior; it may also be that such behavior is so ingrained in our aggressive culture we don’t recognize it.

A subtler form of office bullying can occur among office co-workers, and this article addresses that subset: the bullying happening as a result of when a coworker stands apart from the group in ways that create distance, which causes fearful, insecure coworkers to control the distance by bullying the stand-apart coworker. It is termed “discriminatory-bullying.”

While there are probably endless ways a girl can stand out in her office, this two-part article focuses on two: perceived physical attractiveness and a quiet, introspective personality-type. Here in Part I we deal with perceived physical attractiveness.

So, you thought you were done with ninth grade? Not quite. The same dynamics that occurred then which cause girls to swarm into cliques and bar targeted outsiders from joining occur in the grown-up workplace.

(For more information on how girls develop, check out Carol Gilligan’s “Meeting at the Crossroads: Women’s Psychology and Girl’s Development” and what the mean ones develop into; and Cheryl Dellasega’s “Mean Girls Grown Up: Adult Women Who are Still Queen Bees, Middle Bees, and Afraid-To-Bees”)

Do any of the following scenarios sound familiar?

  • You finally lost those 10 pounds you didn’t really need to lose but knew if you did you’d be happier . . . and you are, and you expect everyone else, including your office comrades, to be happy for you. To your surprise, not only does the conversation fall silent when you shyly mention achieving your goal but also members of your immediate group start ignoring anything you say in meetings or email.
  • You got the job you so desperately wanted and in celebration spent a few extra bucks to learn how to apply eye makeup like a pro and now have a knock-out, smoky look for daytime. For the first time in your life you feel stunning and confident. You start your new job and find yourself shunned by your coworkers and sometimes singled out by them for unfair treatment including unwarranted criticism and blame.
  • You were born beautiful.

Bullying is bullying; whatever the cause, if you’re the target, you’re probably spend way too much time worrying about it (and probably a lot of time emotionally distressed about it) and trying to figure it out.

Here’s a shortcut: never underestimate the power of fear to cause a person to act in inexplicable ways.

A sense of fear or threat is one of the core motivators behind bullying or what Cheryl Dellasega terms “relational aggression,” or using relationships and words to hurt another. She writes about this the core motivators in her book, “Mean Girls Grown Up: Adult Women Who are Still Queen Bees, Middle Bees, and Afraid-To-Bees” (p. 13).

There are plenty of theories out there to explain why women are driven in this way. Whatever theory you believe, as with those mean ninth grade girls most of us remember, the key take-away is how fear underlies the mean co-worker’s actions: fear about someone who will outshine her, fear she’s not good enough, fear if she doesn’t malign bright others around her, she won’t get what she desperately wants.

Why would we in America, a land with so much plenty, always fear the pie is never big enough? Contrast this with a common saying in India a co-worker there told me about as I prepared to visit the country on business and readied myself for the difference in population: “There’s always room for one more.” Clearly this is not the case in the American office.

Imagine either the arrival of an attractive, smart newcomer or a long-term coworker who loses 10 pounds she didn’t really need to lose, perks up her wardrobe and reveals her new waistline, learns how apply killer eye makeup, get a knockout haircut and color or in any way goes from average pretty to knockout.

Almost every woman’s inner mean girl can kick in, in these situations. Many of us rise above the feeling, letting our basic humanity overrule the urge to be mean. Many of us don’t, and often it’s the quickness of the mean response acting as a clue as to the nature of the situation you’re in.

If you’re the target, you probably distance yourself as a way of protecting yourself. It’s an instinctual response (flight rather than fight), and one making you cautious.

If the girl-bully perceives you distancing yourself, to gain control, to show she can in fact affect your life, she may initiate bullying activities. She may do so as reflexively as you distanced yourself.

What can you do to stop the behavior and win without compromising?

The solution: consider the options below and understand the nature of the beast. No, not the girl who’s targeting you; the slow nature of change in organizations.

  • Document your facts: write down days, times, names and specifics regarding the behavior that occurred. This becomes your backup to your voice and a record of events.
  • Bring the behavior to the attention of decision-makers at your company. When you are ready to do this, check out this article, one of the best so far, offering a simple strategy on how to do this effectively: “How to Bust the Office Bully: Eight Tactics for Explaining Workplace Abuse to Decision-Makers.”
  • Consider closing the distance between you and the bully. Determine if there is some ground upon which you can meet.
  • Work hard, be polite, be patient. Anything can happen in the workplace: the mean girl may get promoted out of your group; she may get fired; you may get noticed: someone elsewhere in the company notices how hard you work and approaches you with an offer. If you do decide to transition out, you’ll do so from a position of stability.

And on this final point, I offer this about the nature of the beast, change in organizations: it’s “slow, fragmented, but cumulative” (a dissertation by Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik, p. 184). However, if we office girls don’t lose heart and continue to resist indignities in ways that work, it can happen. As Lutgen-Sandvik points out in her dissertation,

Organizational change does not occur quickly or easily in these situations and acts of resistance, both internal and external to the organization and by exiting the organization, continue for some time before change takes place. . . Organizational changes resulting from worker resistance has a “wearing away” effect on workplace bullying. This study suggests that, changes occur slowly, in a manner to water smoothing sharp-edged stones (p. 209).

By the time (and if) your workplace changes, you may be long gone, but you’ll be smarter and more prepared should you ever encounter the office bully again.

Part II: Quiet Girls and Their Risk for Being Bullied at Work

About the author:
Karen Cavalli is the author of non-fiction and fiction including “Girl Power in the Family: A Book About Girls, Their Rights”, and “Their Voice and AIDS: Examining the Crisis.” Her work has won awards including Notable Children’s Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies, a Pushcart Prize nomination and Outstanding Secondary Science Book.