Over a decade ago, Sheryl Sandberg had a big hit with her book, Lean In - Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. The former Meta executive enthused about the impact of female leadership, claiming women's superior relationship skills would mean that once women were in charge the result would be kinder, more collaborative workplaces. "They will create "environment where everyone shines," she said.
Oh yeh? Well, that hasn't quite worked out as planned, according to stories regularly exposed in the media. Have a look at the kinder, gentler world created by having women in charge. Women like:
Kamala Harris: "It's an abusive environment. It's not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like sh*t." A series of recent media stories revealed Kamala Harris as a bully who inflicted "constant soul-destroying criticism on her office staff." …
Julie Payette: "Bullying and harassment at its worst." So concluded an independent review into former Canadian Governor General, who was accused of creating a "toxic" workplace through yelling, belittling, and public humiliation of staff. This led to her 2021 resignation.
Liz Truss: "It was a toxic regime, pure bullying that drained the life out of the team." The former UK Prime Minister was accused by ex-aides of a "soul-destroying" bullying style during her 49-day premiership, including berating staff over policy failures and fostering a fear-based culture. …
We mustn't forget Australia's best known "Mean Girls", Senators Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher, and former Senator Kristina Keneally. The trio were referred to as the "cantankerous cabal" by the husband of the late Senator Kimberley Kitching, who died after a suspected heart attack, not long after having been ostracised and bullied by this group.
For an excellent example of these mean girls in action, see this video of sneering Wong and Gallagher attacking Senator Linda Reynolds. The decision in the recent defamation action by Reynolds absolutely supports her version of events, including the fact that she ended up in hospital due to the disgraceful attack by Wong and Gallagher who falsely claimed Reynolds failed to support alleged rape victim Brittany Higgins. Yet here they blatantly lie about what happened, oozing contempt, and condescension.
For every female-led workplace demonstrating the much-heralded harmonious, cooperative working environments, there are others where mean girls rule the roost, causing pain and disruption. The results are there for all to see. Study after study has shown relational aggression is a major cause of women leaving jobs, like this University of Nebraska-Lincoln research involving 200 plus leaders which found 62% of women cite "toxic interpersonal dynamics" as a key reason for departure. Another study by American psychologists found 70% of women report low job satisfaction due to relational aggression.
Yet evidence of powerful women poisoning their workplaces is usually kept well hidden. Our carefully controlled public narrative will never acknowledge that women's relationship skills aren't always being put to good use. It's like coercive control, which our society is desperately pretending is a uniquely male form of vice. Yet our community knows full well that women are extremely adept at using emotional abuse to control their relationships.
The best Australian example of our society keeping a lid on the mean girl effect was the Set the Standard inquiry, which followed the furore about Brittany Higgins' allegations that she was raped in Parliament House. The inquiry, looking at sexual harassment, bullying and sexual assault in the parliamentary workplace, found far more bullying than harassment or assault – 42% of women had been bullied, compared to 24% experiencing harassment and 1% actual or attempted sexual assault.
So, bullying was the major problem in this workplace. And who were the main perpetrators? Not men. The inquiry reported that women were responsible for 61% of one-off bullying incidents, and 76% of the repeat offences.
Naturally this interesting finding was totally buried. Not one of the 28 recommendations in the report targeted the high levels of bullying by women and there has been no follow-up on this issue, with most recommendations focussed on increasing gender equity and the like. The media almost uniformly ignored this toxic behaviour, apart from a few warnings mentioning the bullying result must be framed cautiously to avoid "pitting women against women".
What makes relationship aggression so damaging is that women regard workplace relationships as critical to job satisfaction. Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2025 Report found women are more likely than men to prioritize supportive social climates and relationships: Specifically, 72% of women (vs. 58% of men) report that a "supportive social climate" (including strong colleague relationships, recognition, and belonging) is a top factor in job satisfaction and staying with an employer.
This means the behaviour of mean girl bosses is making a lot of women very miserable indeed. In fact, in female-dominated professions like nursing, the problem is so widespread that there's a running gag about nurses eating their young, dating back to a 1986 article by Judith E. Meissner which describes bullying, hazing, or horizontal violence (e.g., withholding information, gossip, intimidation) directed at new or less experienced nurses by more senior colleagues.
Years ago, I played a weekly bridge game with a regular group which included a very experienced executive who found herself in a top job in nurse education. Week after week we heard stories of outrageous behaviour by her new colleagues, a lesbian mafia which played favourites, adjusted the rules, and carved out jobs for their underqualified mates.
The lesbian mafia is a well-documented part of the mean girl story. Solid research such as this study from Creighton University education professor Barbara L. Brock found that in female-dominated fields like education and nonprofits, lesbian women sometimes engage in relational aggression, using exclusion or gatekeeping to secure scarce leadership roles.
Here's a classic story from one of the many online chats on this topic: "A lesbian clinic manager in a women's health centre hoarded resources, excluding junior lesbian staff from trainings by spreading rumours of 'unreliability.' She'd berate them privately for 'not pulling weight,' then publicly praise her favourites—leading to two resignations in a year. It was queen bee syndrome, using her position to control the 'sisterhood.'"
Of course, there are many lesbians who don't behave like this but it is hard not to conclude that the influence of such women in our senior bureaucracies may be driving anti-male policies which allocate almost all health funding to women, and show zero interest in targeted male suicide policies, or in boys' education. Of course, there are plenty of heterosexual male-hating feminists also contributing to this policy prejudice against men and boys.
But the bottom line is the key victims of these mean girls in our workplaces are other women. There's a certain irony in the fact that our feminist-controlled culture claims to have the interests of ordinary women at heart yet ignores this serious problem in order to promote the eternal virtuous women façade.
There's one person who knows more than most about what's going on here – Dr Fiona Girkin.
Regular readers will be aware of the stormy weather faced by this former University of Tasmania lecturer after she featured in a video with me a few months ago, describing her work teaching police the facts about two-way domestic violence. Local feminists launched an attack on Fiona, using the ABC to make this a national news story. The end result has been that Fiona has now moved on and set up her own consultancy – offering help to people dealing with mean girls in the workplace.
This is actually one of Fiona's original areas of expertise. She did a PhD on Female Primary Psychopaths in the Community Services Sector after years spent working in these female-dominated workplaces doing counselling and working in various management positions. In the process she encountered a woman she later came to identify as a "female psychopath", a disorder characterized by callousness and lack of empathy, where women use verbal abuse, manipulation, and relational aggression to bully and intimidate others.
Talking to others in this female-dominated workforce, Fiona realised her experience was far from uncommon and went on to do her PhD research examining the prevalence of female psychopaths in community services and the impact on male and female colleagues of their behaviour.
I've had another video conversation with Fiona about this fascinating topic where she explained the destructive role played by these bullies in their workplaces, particularly on their female colleagues, given that women place such value on their workplace relationships.
It's great to know Fiona is now out there, willing to lend her expertise to people who find themselves dealing with this type of workplace bully. She plans not only to work with individuals needing help but also to offer seminars on managing toxic behaviour of women in workplaces and in relationships.
It's important she gets the message out that it is women suffering most from our refusal to address the vile behaviour of this type of bully.
We need to call out the feminist protection racket which is allowing mean women to get away with toxic behaviour which shouldn't be tolerated. Once again Fiona is showing her courage in taking on a topic many are keen to keep under wraps. She deserves our support.