Hey Emily,

Lots of food for thought! A couple of questions that came to mind:

I'd be interested to know what it means (at least to you) to be a businesswoman in the positive sense? How is this qualitatively different than a businessman? Why shouldn't we all strive to be businesspeople?

I find it disheartening that you have had to assume that others you come into contact with have had negative experiences working with women, but at the same time, I question what constitutes "negative" and whether it should be incumbent upon you (or any other woman) to have to take into account or mitigate for the existing prejudices or past history of people you work with. If a man feels emasculated by previous dealings with female colleagues (and I find that a far more believable scenario than a woman metaphorically "castrating him in the boardroom)isn't that his problem to solve? Why shoulder that burden and assume a stacked deck?

Women have saved me - they have been my support - both in business and in my personal life. I've also enjoyed great friendships and mentoring from men.

I think you get out of life what you expect. If you are not a catty person who gossips and steps on toes, you won't hang around people who are, and if you are . . . then you need to take a look at yourself first.

Personal responsibility is always the first place to start.

I belong to organizations where there are men, but I do run a dream website for women - by women - and find everyone to be wonderful.

But this also could be an industry specific issue - maybe some industries are more cut-throat than others, causing women to fight against each other for promotions?

I love this, "What we need is to round up the leaders, mentors and great individuals who are women making a difference."

There is a website working on your idea called Academy of Achievement at http://www.achievement.org.

Great post - Catherine

The assumption that others have had negative experiences with other women is startling to me. It's nothing that I would be familiar with.I actually passed this off to my mother via email, as she has run several businesses, and even as a boomer she found it rather unsubstantiated by her experience.

I've worked for an international NGO, and a womens commission and currently an economic commission. I haven't found more negative experiences working with women than with men, and it's not a complaint I hear from co-workers either.

I haven't seen it in grad school either.

I see ageism oneither end of the spectrum as a larger issue.

Possibly I'm oblivious to it and need to look around. I just haven't seen it thus far. I hope it's not the case though.

@Kate, stereotyping across the board is always an issue, and I think you're right, why doesn't this guy just hate everyone? Perhaps the collaborative nature of women can hurt us if we're seen as groups instead of individuals. My example was a bit extreme, but I know I've been there before. I still don't know the answer on how to get over a situation like that.

@J. Maureen, I love that you used "incumbent" because we all know (men or woman) there are just times you inherit the blame of those who've come before you exactly because people don't want to solve their own problems. And actually, your other thought about all becoming good businesspeople, not just businesswomen, would be something I like to see overall. Cassandra in the comments mentioned its a non-issue in her workplace possibly because it's not crossed with other generations. Ideally it does become a non-issue overall.

@Cassandra, thanks for sharing your experience with women's groups. I know that there is always some way the cattiness comes out, and it'd be nice to find a way to remove that all together. We're founding a Women's MBA Association at my school right now, and the goal isn't to make a separation, but to feed into overall goals with MBAs. I'm hoping we stay on the doing "good" side instead of harm, and your own comments are now in my mind for moving forward.

@Catherine, I'm glad you have been fortunate to experience great relationships with women. Your note about problems sometimes being industry-specific might be true. I know that some of the female executives who were coached by my previous company often had the hardest times in the auto, banking, government, and tech industries. Often it wasn't being unable to do their job, but it was operating in territories without many allies.

@Jennifer, one thing I usually try to remember when I'm frustrated about being treated a certain way is what is in my control. I can't change how someone thinks, but I might be able to change my behavior. I did a lot of that when surrounded by men expecting things done a certain way. I admit it, I'm a people-pleaser, a quality pretty traditional for a woman. Unfortunately, I also gave up a lot of myself. When I set my own standards, I began to garner more respect. I could still make people happy, but didn't need to fold up myself in the process.

@Cooper, I think it's awesome you haven't seen this. I know topics like women bullying women are still pretty hot on Brazen, so sadly it still happens. I've heard stories from my own parents about what they see, everything from men who purposefully exclude the single female executive on their team, to women being asked to share hotel rooms but men being given their own individual ones. The extreme example I put in my post, I personally believe exemplifies broken systems where weak leaders don't deal with issues and project them onto others. There are plenty of women who hate men, and there people who don't want to deal with man haters. I guess the question is where does the hating get handled so it's not a workplace issue? Thanks!

@Katrina, you are right, these are pretty universal issues. I know for me, ideally there would be no politicking to navigate. I just don't think it's worth the energy when you could use it somewhere else. I've found a number of other women who feel that way (and maybe we should get together with the men like that and have no-politicking companies). It had to be another woman who helped me learn to navigate, however. I was flat out told by some men that if I didn't figure it out on my own, I would have been left to sink. To me, that's the worst kind of behavior because it means you actively don't want someone to do their job. Then why be in business? Oh well, ideally, these all become non-issues. I just don't know when.