A few years into my career, I found out a woman I worked with had spent time and energy making sure I didn’t get promoted.
She was above me on the org chart, though we were on completely different tracks. It was a very small research group, and I handled data and operations on the research side. She was the administrator. There was no reason for her to see me as a threat. But when a promotion I’d been promised got pushed back again, I stopped waiting and took a new job somewhere else.
On my last day, a coworker pulled me aside and told me the truth. The other woman had been bragging that she’d made sure I didn’t get it.
I was angry about that for a long time.
What Competition Costs
I still don’t fully understand why she felt threatened. But I understand the instinct behind it, even if I don’t excuse it. Somewhere, she’d learned the same lesson a lot of women learn without anyone ever saying it out loud: there’s only one seat at the table, and if you’re not careful, someone else will take yours.
Turns out that’s not just a feeling. Researchers who study workplace competition among women, sometimes labeled “queen bee syndrome,” found that the label itself is misleading. There’s no real evidence that senior women hold junior women back more than senior men hold back junior men. What actually drives the behavior is scarcity. When women are boxed into one or two token leadership spots, they end up competing for something genuinely limited, not acting out some flaw in their character. One study found the tipping point sits around three women, or about 20 percent representation, in a room. Below that, people guard their seat. Above it, they start building each other up instead.
That belief cost both of us. It cost her a working relationship she could have leaned on. It cost me months of quiet frustration, wondering what I was doing wrong, before I ever knew the real reason.
Competition between women rarely looks dramatic. It looks like a promotion that keeps getting delayed. A compliment that never comes. Help that gets offered to everyone except you. Small, deniable, and corrosive.
What We Do Instead
At Cup of Accountabili’Tea, the story is different. Every Friday, a group of women sit down, share what they’re working through, and get honest input back. No pitches. No politics. No one working against you behind your back.
Here’s what that sounds like in practice: a woman says she’s scared her business idea isn’t big enough. Nobody tells her it’s fine. Somebody asks a better question instead, one that gets her closer to an answer she already had in her but hadn’t said out loud yet.
That’s the whole model. Show up, say the true thing, let the room help you think. Repeat every other week until you’re not carrying it alone anymore.
Three Ways to Support the Woman Next to You
- Say the thing to her face. If you have a concern, a doubt, or even resentment, say it directly. The version that gets said behind someone’s back never helps anyone.
- Remember the thing she was nervous about. Follow up on it three weeks later. Almost nobody does this, which is exactly why it matters.
- Root for a win that isn’t yours. It costs nothing and it’s rarer than it should be.
Support Doesn’t Need an Audience
Real support rarely looks like the version on social media. It’s not a comment that says “you’ve got this.” It’s a text at nine at night that says “how did the meeting go?” It’s someone remembering the thing you were nervous about weeks ago and asking, unprompted.
Small. Specific. Consistent. That moves someone forward more than any hashtag will.
The Room Gets Bigger When You Stop Guarding Your Seat
I think about that old coworker sometimes, not with anger anymore, more with a kind of tiredness on her behalf. Whatever she thought she was protecting, guarding her seat cost her a lot more than it ever gained her.
If you’re tired of guarding your seat, there’s an open one here waiting for you.
Sources:
Queen Bee Syndrome: The Workplace Dynamic Holding Women Back
The immortal – and false – myth of the workplace Queen Bee
Catty, bitchy, queen bee or sister? A review of competition among women in organizations
Sara Hickson