Does anyone else feel that they have been treated unkindly more often by women than by men? I have not dared to do this before so please be nice.

I take this to mean not within a relationship, otherwise there will be many woman who have been upset or even abused by partners.

Pretty even I think and the same for kindness actually.

Hi there, yes I was treated so badly by a woman who I thought was my friend.
She reeled me in and then humiliated me.
I had known her for many years but only became close when we returned to the area I was raised.
I’m still not really over it and have only made one new female friend since.
Fortunately I have a few loyal and trusted friends but it was a difficult time.
Her cruelty was nasty and all pre meditated.

So sorry I didnt mean relationships I meant women sales assistants etc

I'm sorry that you've experienced these upsets. I've been mistreated a few times by both men and women but I have to say, found the hurt caused me by other women greater and harder to deal with. I think perhaps, that was because I felt those women had betrayed the 'sisterhood' which of course I now realise was silly; there is good and bad across all walks of life.
I wish you well Violettham

Pretty much evenly. I went to an all girls school so the only bullies I encountered there were female. In my early working life it was 50/50. Once I began working in STEM and became quite senior I didn’t really have any problems.

I think there’s a greater expectation that women should treat people kindly. And a greater acceptance of brusque or thoughtless treatment by men.

For instance women shop assistants are expected to make eye contact, smile or even make conversation.

I certainly met more women at work who resented me than men.

Whether it was because I made the most of my educational opportunities, whether it was because I studied a subject mainly studied by men, whether it was because I worked mainly in the engineering and energy sector and was frequently the only woman who was not a clerical worker. I do not know.

It was worst in the 1960s/70s and into the 1980s but from about 1985 onwards as more women went into higher education and studied a wider range of subjects and moved out of traditional careers into science and technology, life got much easier and resentment did fade..

I could write a book about some of my "work colleagues"! On the surface, they were ok and would chat quite pleasantly but once we got to the stage where they wanted to know more than I was prepared to share with them the claws came out! I certainly would not pick many of them as friends but you've heard the saying "keep your friends close and and your enemies closer"!

yes, definitely more by women. i was bullied for my last 4 years at work by 3 colleagues but did not recognise it as bullying until someone pointed it out just before i left. this was the nineties and nobody really spoke up about such things in fear of being ridiculed, or worse, that it would get back to those involved that you had reported them. i was in my fifties and the ringleader was in her forties, the other two were younger. i was subjected to most humiliating behaviour, a couple of the worst being having to tell her where i was going each time i left my desk and having her occasionally come and sit beside me to go through everything in and on my desk to remove anything she considered unnecessary. she said she was told to do both of these things by our manager so of course, i had to comply. there were also many times when i came into the office and it was obvious that i was the subject when talk would stop and those concerned would look at me. i could not think of any basis for this behaviour then, and still cannot 22 years on. i was never a very confident person and this sapped what little i had. their treatment of me will prey on my mind for ever and in hindsight, i wonder why i stuck it out for so long. i am happy to report that when the company was in difficulties, as one of the older members of staff, i was offered and took redundancy.

I think a lot has to do with whether you mix (in any sense) with more women or men. Shop assistants are more likely to be women, so of course you are more likely to be badly treated by women in that context. You are equally likely to be well-treated by them, too.

If the majority of colleagues at your level have been women, then again, you will base your experiences on that, just as you will if the majority have been men.

Speaking for myself, I have been most hurt by people I have felt close to, regardless of sex, but equally, I have had the most joy, love and support from close friends, too. I would imagine most people would say the same - it is difficult to be hurt by someone you don't care about or know well.

Yes, Doodledog I was just about to post that if it is people like shop assistants you feel are unkind, isn't it just that there are more female shop assistants? Same with work colleagues.

I havn’t had any male work colleagues that treated me badly or unfairly, quite a few females have tried to bully me or take advantage. Personally I like working for a male boss

Thinking about strangers who have made 'comments' to me about getting in their way on the Tube, taking my children to swim in a hotel swimming pool (how these things come back from nowhere!), taking a parking place that was somehow obviously theirs etc, men seem to feel that it is their right to say any nasty thing they want. Probably because I'm a woman and unlikely to punch them on the nose! And, of course, I'm always too shocked to come back with a suitable response. In my experience, which I understand might not be yours, women do complain if they think they're in the right, but I haven't had any downright nasty comments from them.

Sadly there are people of both sexes who will treat others badly. I worked with mainly female colleagues and most treated me well as I did them.
As for shop assistants I have come across some who have been less than polite but I just think 'how rude' and have forgotten them 5 minutes later.

and from my limited experience of bosses - I only had 4 or 5 in my working life - the women were better managers by far. In fact I still meet up socially with 2 of them.

I have had several women bosses and all of them were excellent. Inevitably I have had more men bosses than women and a couple of those were rather nasty, mainly because they were incompetent.

My worst boss ever was a woman, she couldn’t work productively with other women at all-as she always had to be right, so she took credit for the work of others, lied and manipulated the rest of us on the management team with no conscience at all - there was an uprising in the end which forced her out, but many of us still bear the scars.

Probably worse by men, but it’s a numbers game - I have a handful of close gay male friends and some male relatives I love dearly, but mostly I interact with cisgender men through work, in a rather intellectually combative industry. Otherwise, I mostly spend my time with my wife and my female and non-binary friends. I’m pretty good at cutting out people who treat me poorly in my personal life, but that’s harder to do professionally.

Some years ago my OH was asked to visit Joseph in Sloane Street to look at a table by a very wealthy client, because he wanted it copied. The assistants in the women's shop were very unhelpful and snooty. He then went on to the men's shop were the assistants, all young men, were very helpful, found the table and removed the stock on display so that he could measure it.

A female friend commiserated with him and said - you just have to remember that they all went to posh schools, can't get any other job and are marking time until they get married. For the young men, the circumstances would have been different and they would like have wanted to make a career in retail.

That same friend worked part time in smart shop in the Fulham Road and the owner told all her staff that you had to be polite to everybody who came in because they could be rock stars.

I had a female boss who was the nastiest person I have ever met in my life. I have never met a man who behaved like that in a professional capacity.

Casual encounters aside (e.g. in shops) I’m afraid to say that the only people I would ever actively seek to avoid, because they were in some way or other seriously bitchy, are or were women.
They are very few, though.
I’ve felt certain men to be pains in the bum, but I’ve never known one to be nasty in the same way. I dare say I’ve just been lucky.

No, I don't think so.

All the time, even now, as a bar/restaurant owner I was usually treated quite well by men in the 'trade'. Women in the 'industry', i.e. sales persons always insisted on speaking to the 'manager'.
Women just could not negotiate with an other Woman, they could not flirt or flutter the eyes at an older woman and just became rude and a wee bit nasty.
When I had come from a busy kitchen they would pass comments on my hair or lack of make up. One daft girl even made a comment on my weight !!!!!!
I always informed the company they were working for about their behavior. Their are a lot of us in the catering industry and the daft wee lassies should learn that.
Sorry I have wanted to have a rant at this for many years.