Meow
If you can read the word “meow” and not immediately hear it sung by CatRat from Gabby’s Dollhouse, congratulations. We live different lives right now and I am jealous of you. But I’m not here to talk about Gabby’s Dollhouse.* I’m here to talk about women being called “catty.” Oooooh just typing that word gets me riled up for a lot of reasons but mostly because calling women catty is part of a larger false narrative around women in general and women in the workplace in particular.
Back in the late 1500s the word “catish” was used to describe someone who was “like a cat.” I love that. Cats are awesome. One day they cuddle you, the next they pretend you don’t exist. They knock your shit over without a care in the world. They are fluffy and sassy and generally great. There’s no insult (at least to me) in being called catish. But then something shifted in the etymology and by the late 1880s it was “catty” and there was a whole new meaning. To be catty was to be devious, spiteful, and deliberately hurtful in your remarks and some synonyms include: cruel, snarky, vicious, bitter, and malicious.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s cats became part of the women’s suffrage movement. They were used in campaigns both for and against the right for women to vote. British anti-suffrage organizations used the cat to symbolize women as delicate, simple and therefore incapable of the heavy burden of voting. Whoever came up with this campaign must not have interacted with many cats. In 1916, on a cross country road trip to promote women’s suffrage, Nell Richardson and Alice Burke adopted a cat they named Saxon and made him the unofficial mascot of the movement. Cats: equally useful in promoting good and evil.
The way catty is used now is more about describing damaging interpersonal behaviors between women and it’s a distinctively gendered label that increases the stigmatization of women at work. Basically, it’s code for being bitchy and the narrative is purposeful. It’s a way to discredit us as competent leaders and creates doubt around us in general. It keeps us from advancing because how can we be “trusted” to support the men we work with then we can’t support each other? Just out of curiosity though, what is the male equivalent to catty? I keep thinking about this. There are plenty of guys who don’t support other guys but there’s no specific descriptor for them. People might say they are a jerk or overly competitive, but those words don’t seem to carry as much baggage as catty, do they? In fact, it seems to me that these are qualities others can deem positive traits in men. Should we try and make catty positive, ladies?
Growing up I had a cat named Sally. Sally was roaming the alley by my grandparent’s house so we started giving her treats and eventually she moved to the suburbs with us. Sally was actually a boy cat but there was no way I was changing his name so Sally he remained. This cat was something. At the time, my dad was selling the homes in the development where we lived. Sally would follow him to work, wait outside of the model home, and then tag along, tail in the air, as he showed houses. Very cool. Sally was an excellent hunter. He would bring home half-dead presents covered in feathers (aka birds) and leave them for us. In an attempt to stop this, Sally was given a bell so the birds would hear him and escape. This didn’t happen. Sally would either ditch the collar or was too fast for it to matter and the murders continued. I convinced my dad Sally needed a particular kind of cat food from the store. Not because I was concerned with his health and well-being but because, and I swear this is true, I wanted the brand that came with free knee high panty hose. I went down quite the internet rabbit hole to see if I could find this exceptionally weird promotion and came up with nothing but I distinctly remember this happening. One time my grandma got Sally a sweater so he wouldn't be cold on his winter stalking adventures. It was cute and red and had a little pattern on it. As soon as we got it on him, he immediately acted as if his back legs were paralyzed. Literally dragged them behind him. My grandma thought she hurt him somehow and was so upset, but as soon as we took off the sweater he shook himself and sped away; miraculously healed. Sadly, one day Sally just didn’t come home. We couldn’t prove it but always thought he was taken out by the local pheasant hunters because he was a threat and was better at catching birds than them. Jealousy is dangerous.
The good news is that research shows what we already know; women actually do support each other! In fact, Drs. Melissa Carr and Elisabeth Kelan showed that women are actively supporting each other. They describe what we are doing as, “mobilising femininities to help negotiate dominant hegemonic masculinity.” That is one bad-ass description. What it means is that women see our friendships with other women at work as a source of emotional and social support that help relieve stress while men see workplace friendships as a functional part of their work. Perhaps they should be the ones we don’t trust to support each other?
Our friends in Australia and New Zealand have their own version of this. It’s called Tall Poppy Syndrome. The idea is that poppy flowers are supposed to grow all at the same time to the same height so when individuals break out it’s not acceptable and the outliers must be cut down to size. Anne C. Mancl coined the term “poppy clipper” to describe the individual who feels the need to “cut down” the tall poppy/successful individual. Though initially an idea that applied to men and women, Tall Poppy Syndrome has shifted to become an explanation for why women are attacked or criticized for their success at work. A 2018 study of 1500 working women in Canada showed that being cut down leads to women feeling decreased self-esteem, no longer wanting to share achievements, and engaging in negative self-talk.
During my first year of the doctoral program I adopted another cat. Her name was Franny. She was gorgeous but a total jackass. She loved nothing more than to engage in random acts of violence (not kindness). She attacked for no reason and found joy in terrorizing people. Once, she decided my friend Oscar was perfect prey. He was relaxing at my dining room table with his arm in a sling from a recent mountain biking incident. Franny climbed the inseam of his jeans and landed her kitten claws squarely on his crotch. The scene is forever burned into my brain. Oscar jumped up from the table screaming “ayeee!!” with Franny clinging to his nether regions like velcro. She lived to fourteen and Leo got to spend several years with her. To this day he still misses her and cries about her being gone. Look at that scowl. She was a menace but she was our menace.
Queen Bee Syndrome (please note this has nothing to do with Beyoncé, but I wish it did) is often brought up in conjunction with cattiness. This term was coined in 1974 by three researchers who used it as a derogatory term to describe a woman who has found success in a male-dominated field. They theorized that this success would lead women at the top to be unsupportive of other women and that they would actively work against them. The general idea was that the woman who made it had to struggle to get there so she was unwilling to help anyone else along or share the spotlight. They also believed this phenomena increased when the women trying to make it to the top were younger than the ones already there. Love that they included a bit of ageism for kicks.
I would like to contend that these researchers didn’t know shit about bees when they came up with this term. In reality, the queen bee isn’t ruling the colony through fear and intimidation and holding back other lady bees. She is central to what happens because she controls when she will lay eggs and her pheromones provide crucial signals for the colony but the worker bees can decide to murder her and find a replacement whenever they want. Unrelated but awesome, worker bees perform “booty shaking” dances to guide the other bees to pollen. Perhaps melittology (you guessed it-the study of bees) wasn’t as advanced in 1974 as it is today so I wanted to set the record straight.
The cliché of the queen bee continued for decades (and still persists in some circles) but recent research does not back up the idea and offers a more nuanced explanation of what may be happening. First, women are expected to be warm and caring so when they are perceived not to be these things (especially when they are leaders) they are labeled as unhelpful, spiteful, and CATTY. Just because women aren’t hugging everyone at work doesn’t mean they are spending their time sabotaging all of the other women in the office. In fact, what is actually happening is the opposite of Queen Bee Syndrome. Women are acting as role models and mentors to other women at work. Senior female executives are promoting women at high rates and female CEOs are 50 percent more likely to have a female CFO than their male peers. This is what I see in my own work world too. We all want to see each other succeed and are willing to step in, mentor, advocate, and support in whatever ways necessary to make that happen.
Does this mean that catty women and queen bees don’t exist and that we have solved the problem? Sadly, no. Does this mean that I fully support every woman I meet? Also, no. I’m a feminist, not a Saint. I can want all women to be treated fairly but still think someone’s sucks. 🤷♀️
Some of this remaining catty/Queen Bee behavior can be blamed on an unsupportive or toxic corporate culture. When women consistently face gender discrimination and bias in their careers (with no repercussions for the perpetrators) they begin to emphasize how different they are from other women, and may also begin to apply gender stereotypes they themselves have encountered. It can also be that some people are just terrible. We will never eliminate these issues completely but they are the exception not the norm. If and when you do encounter these issues there are some tactics to try. One that seems to come up most often is simply calling out the behavior. That may be easier said than done in many situations but I thought this was an excellent suggestion:
I hope that as workplaces continue to become more diverse and inclusive that these behaviors fade even further into the background. In the meantime, if you are a woman who wants to move up the ranks you should communicate regularly with a female-dominated inner circle to attain high-ranking leadership positions. If you are good where you are then be supportive. And if you can’t be supportive maybe just be quiet. Let all of the poppies grow however they want; there is enough room for us all.
*Unless you want to… I have some questions about that show.