Treatment of women by women is often different from how women may treat men. Women often suck up to men while treating their female coworkers quite negatively.

What I would like to query is who controls henhouse and how do they do it?

To begin, let’s explore overt vs. covert control.

Overt may consist of a raised voice, public reprimanding or ridicule, demeaning or cutting comments.

Under this heading of mostly verbal behaviors, a topic that deserves attention of its own is how the hen treats those who come to her for help. She may lash out at a person when they come for help, punishing the person for requesting it. She may say that she told you something already, even if it was months ago and only once. You then avoid asking questions or showing ignorance, which will negatively affect your function and effectiveness, so you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

It’s a particular problem when a rooster tells you to ask the hen questions and the top hen reacts unpleasantly, thereby making you the problem for coming to her. She is likely to try to make you feel stupid. If you have an analytical head on your shoulders and are capable of explaining the matter to her specifically, you will still be digging your own grave, because that will be interpreted as insubordination, rather than trying to clean the shit she has put in your path from your boots. I’m also going to say that this is more likely to happen if you are intelligent and therefore perceived as a threat, especially if your vocabulary and sentence complexity are not at the level of an average newspaper article.

Covert control may include exclusion, avoidance including conversation or invitations, and only greeting if spoken to first.

Withholding critical information that you need to function in your environment is great for a game of cat and mouse. This includes a calculated way of giving information necessary to do the job by withholding some important detail. Inadequate training and no standard operating procedures or software manuals can compound the problems of learning in a henhouse, which will become your learning deficiency and may not be accidental. She may avoid giving you the forest overview and release one tree of information at a time. I would also posit that learning isn’t well understood, and teaching is often done badly. If your workplace is understaffed, your questions also become a hindrance to those same hens who are struggling to do their double workload.

If there is an attempt to discuss this with the rooster, she will deny her behavior or reframe it to something less damning in conversation with him. If it’s about you, negative assumptions and interpretations will abound. Blaming those supervised by the top hens is a given, regardless of whether it’s rightfully assigned. Her agenda is to keep her place in the pecking order, and to this end, she will put stumbling blocks in your way to waste your energy and hasten failure. She will be most successful at keeping the rooster hoodwinked if he is not a rooster but a capon in disguise.

If you’re a woman reading this, think back to the 7th and 8th grade social environment for a snapshot of negative female behaviors and coping with the superficial social structure. It’s still the same in a henhouse with adult hen women. When I’ve observed them in action, I don’t understand how they have the emotional energy to create drama and make misery for others. Honestly, I’ve always had far fewer friendships with women, because it’s just easier for me to avoid these behaviors. I’ve had little success working with them.

If you’re a man reading this, I’d be interested in any henhouse observations you may want to share with me, as a relative outsider.

On the lighter side, while driving into the countryside, I saw a “Free Manure” sign on the side of the road, and I reflected on how generously these hens dispense manure to those around them, wanted or not.

Lili Hun