Queen Bee Syndrome: Women Who Judge, Criticize And Attack Others
Queen bee syndrome is a concept that, despite not being used in clinical settings and not referring to a disorder, is used by some people to refer to a pattern of social behavior that is harmful. Specifically, one that has to do with envy and competitiveness between women.
In this article we will see what is queen bee syndrome the way it is expressed through personal relationships, and why it is harmful.
It would seem logical that, since there is a female and a male gender, the people associated with each of them would feel more comfortable interacting with their peers most of the time. However, in the case of many women this is not the case, and they prefer the regular company of men. This phenomenon is a consequence of what we call queen bee syndrome.
And what is queen bee syndrome? Basically, it is a relational dynamic that leads some women to think that, by default, the rest of the women are his rivals or people who must be dominated Furthermore, this competitive and individualistic logic does not have to be a reflection of the personality of the woman in question, since it does not apply to her treatment of men.
Examples: the confrontations and rivalries that it produces
To better understand what queen bee syndrome is, let’s look at some typical examples that occur in a multitude of contexts.
Making a person gain a bad reputation by speaking ill of them behind their back is relatively easy, and the consequences can be very painful It is not even necessary to have reliable information: the morbidity towards stories of immorality and the ambiguity can lead to the belief of a completely invented or highly exaggerated story.
Furthermore, the influence of sexism and machismo has meant that there are many reasons to criticize a woman: aspects of her life are questioned that would make no sense to criticize in the case of men.
2. Fight to stand out at all costs
Some women who have queen bee syndrome and who also have an expansive personality feel bad if it is not clear that they are the ones who stand out the most compared to their peers. That is why, for example, when a new co-worker arrives, there are times when she is received with cold hostility and certain passive-aggressive attitudes
In extreme cases, an attempt can be made to have the colleague fired, since it is understood that simply because she is a woman, if there is a free position to which she can be promoted, the competition will be between people of the same sex.
3. Criticism of physical appearance
Physical appearance is the great flank on which women are constantly attacked. It is something visible to everyone that can give rise to all kinds of understandable comments without needing to know the personal context of the person being judged. Since women have been valued for centuries basically for their reproductive properties, teasing related to your attractiveness has the capacity to be especially humiliating
Queen bee syndrome causes women to see others as potential enemies for no apparent reason. Thus, those who dedicate themselves body and soul to harming their colleagues do not need an excuse to distrust others or to launch “preventive attacks.”
But what makes queen bee syndrome rarer is that, considering that women have been at a disadvantage for millennia (and largely still are today in many ways and most countries), it would be expected that non-cooperation between them would be harshly punished and would be so little advantageous that it would disappear. After all, in difficult situations, forms of life tend to ally themselves to move forward.
That is why sorority, which is the female equivalent of fraternity, is something that totally clashes with the queen bee syndrome. The existence of envy, rivalries and all kinds of quarrels between women due to the type of being women fragment a group that is already harmed.
That is why this behavioral and social phenomenon is seen as not only an individual problem (the woman who gets used to interacting like this with other women creates discomfort in them), but also a social one (unity is strength, and attacking against her with bad excuses turns out negative).
