A new opinion essay published by The Federalist argues that the rapid rise of women into management roles across the U.S. workforce may be making offices worse to work in, not better, drawing on the author’s personal experience as a supervisor and on existing research about leadership styles.
The essay opens by noting figures reported elsewhere. The Washington Post recently cited Pew Research Center data showing the share of women in heterosexual marriages who earn as much or more than their husbands has nearly tripled over the past five decades. A separate report from last year found women now make up almost half of U.S. managers, an increase of more than 50 percent since 1980, spanning many professional fields. Last month’s jobs data also showed women accounted for almost all new job hires in August.
The author, who writes anonymously about time spent as a workplace supervisor, says those statistics are typically treated as unqualified progress, but questions whether they translate into better work environments. The essay recounts leading an office team that was almost entirely male, describing it as “beyond a doubt the best office” one female employee said she had ever worked in.
According to the essay, that male-led team did not display stereotypical “toxic masculine” behavior, sexual harassment, or favoritism. The author writes that all the male managers were family men who had served in either Afghanistan or Iraq, and cites research indicating little to no difference in rates of abusive supervision between male and female bosses.
The piece argues this environment was results-oriented, competitive, and risk-tolerant, with comparatively few and short meetings, while also being accommodating toward employees with family responsibilities — including pregnant or nursing mothers needing time for medical appointments or pumping.
Claims About Female-Led Teams
The author writes that the most frequent workplace complaints heard came from women who had worked under female supervisors, including claims that female bosses were less sympathetic to the needs of mothers and that some offices had “cattish” cultures built around cliques. One source quoted in the essay said a previous female boss told her that if she wanted a successful career, she “shouldn’t have any more children.”
The essay references a concept researchers call “queen bees” — women who prioritized career over having children — and suggests, citing unspecified recent research, that such leaders can be less sympathetic toward colleagues balancing motherhood and career, and may compensate by adopting more assertive, emotion-suppressing leadership styles.
The author also cites the book First Line of Defense by Doug Barry and Daniel O’Connor, quoting the authors’ assertion that “Men are fighters. … [They] were made for risk and adventure,” and references a line from Theodore Roosevelt’s 1899 speech on what he called “the doctrine of the strenuous life.”
The essay acknowledges that male-dominated workplaces of the past often subjected women to derision and sexual harassment, and states men today remain capable of the same misconduct when given authority. Still, the author argues men possess qualities suited to self-sacrificing leadership and predicts that as male influence in workplaces declines, offices will become more cliquish, more prone to micromanagement and indecision, and ultimately less accommodating to women seeking to balance career and family.
The essay references writer Helen Andrews, who the author says warned last year of a potential “feminist dystopia” in workplace culture, and closes by suggesting the feminist labor movement’s promises of fulfillment through career advancement may undercut the very success and happiness it sought to deliver.
