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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]be more specific. what kind of problems exactly do you have? [/quote]

Op here. I can't really say what exactly the problems are. It just happen to be in my past 15+ years of working experiences, I just happen to click more with all male supervisors/VP/director. They are nice to me and they are more patience and caring about me in company and personal life. By the way, I am not attractive and I am married with kids.

I notice about the same things when I was in college years working part time back then. I think male supervisors are nice to me overall. I think some women supervisor may find me intimidating or boring or weirdo and just they don't care about me much at professional level or my personal life outside of work. I have tried to be more fun and chat to them once in a while, but it is so hard to build relationship with them. For men, they are more straight forward and seem to be more open minded. We could sometimes talk about things that we can laugh out loud. I think in the early years of my career, even though I am not attractive but somehow I am kind of the person that seem to get a bit favoritism/protectionism from male supervisors even though I have done nothing. [/quote]

OP, I'm also a married woman in my 40s who is not super attractive and I have had a similar experience. However, I would not say I never click with female bosses. I've had a few over the years who I get along really well with. Right now I work for two women and I get along well with one and not well with the other one. I've also had good relationships with all the male bosses I've had.

But I've had several female bosses over the years with whom I did not get along. Very similar to what you are describing -- just hard to build a friendly rapport, they seem antagonistic at times, I don't feel like they are rooting for me to do well even on projects they assigned to me where, in theory, my success should reflect well on them. Also, all of my micromanaging bosses have been women.

I should also note that I've worked for way more women than men. Like probably 70% female bosses, 30% male. So it's not that weird to me that all my "bad" bosses have been women.

I've thought a lot about it because I'm uncomfortable with the idea that I have issues with female leadership -- I think of me as a champion of professional women and I've gravitated towards organizations with a lot of women in leadership.

I do have to admit, though, that I think there is something gendered going on here. I do think that SOME female bosses struggle with a certain kind of female subordinate. Specifically, I think some women do not know how to manage a woman who is very self-directed. I am not someone who wants, or needs, a ton of hand holding in my work, and I think the women I have not gotten along with have viewed this independence negatively, like if I am not asking more questions or running more things by them, it must be because I don't respect them. But I don't view it this way -- the reason I am self-directed is because I try to respect my boss's time, plus I understand how I learn best is by doing and then getting feedback, not by simply being told what to do. The bosses I've done well with have all tended to value this in me, but the ones that don't value it can get frustrated with me.

Maybe part of this is internalized misogyny on my part. Maybe I subconsciously ask female bosses fewer questions. But I also think it could be internalize misogyny on their part. In at least one case, it was very clear that my boss trusted the men on staff to work independently more, and tended to micromanage the women on staff more -- it was something both the men and women on staff noticed.

That said, I've had some great female bosses, including one of the women I work for now. So I don't think it's that I just can't handle female leadership at all. I think it's more that there might be a greater likelihood of this specific personality mismatch with women.[/quote]

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