Buried in a Science section column about workplace bullies by Tara Parker-Pope of The New York Times yesterday:
A large share of the problem involves women victimizing women. The Zogby survey showed that 40 percent of workplace bullies are women.
That survey on workplace bullying by Zogby International had found that half of working Americans have “suffered or witnessed workplace bullying — including verbal abuse, job sabotage, abuse of authority or destruction of workplace relationships.”
But women—bullying women? The Zogby poll quotes Dr. Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute in Bellingham, Wash.:
When bullies are women, they choose other women as their prey in 71% of cases. Bullying, or status-blind harassment, is four times more prevalent than illegal, civil rights, status-based harassment. Same-gender harassment defines the two most frequent categories of bullying. Gary Namie said, “It was legal when we started the movement in ’98 and it still is today.”
Workplace bullying is a serious problem, with victims suffering real harm to their mental and physical health—not to mention its effect on the workplace as a whole. No doubt you’ve read Bob Sutton’s excellent argument for eradicating office bullies, The No-A–hole Rule (I put forth a much lamer argument against such a ban in TIME). If you think you’re being bullied, read Allison Van Dusen’s Forbes.com piece: “Ten Signs You’re Being Bullied At Work.”
But let me repeat the Zogby findings: three out of four times, women choose to harass other women instead of men at work.
As Keanu Reeves would say: whoa. I need corroboration here. Anyone with stories of woman-on-woman workplace harassment?