(2 of 2)
Perhaps reality lies somewhere between the rapier thrust and the sympathetic ear. There may be a tendency for women to be more jealous of one another than men are of their colleagues, says Niles Newton, a behavioral scientist at Northwestern Medical School. That stems, she thinks, "from insecurities because they haven't been in the workplace as long as men." Assertiveness and rivalry also make many women feel uncomfortable, "and it becomes much more a problem in the workplace, where they are a natural occurrence," says Anne Frenkel, a social worker with the Chicago Women's Therapy Collective. "Women have to understand that being competitive with someone doesn't mean you don't like them. Men can be competitive and still be friends."
Still, friendships between women -- what Simone de Beauvoir called that "warm and frivolous intimacy" -- are too often the casualties of success these days. Eichenbaum, 35, and Orbach, 41, are concerned that "in the world of every-woman-for-herself, the old support systems can be tragically undermined." That sometimes happens when women win promotions and find themselves supervising women who were once close friends. "I tend not to have relationships with women I supervise," says Kathy Schrier, 40, a union administrator in Manhattan. "Some women can't make that break, though, and it hurts them as managers."
Other women have problems relating to their female bosses. Even though MGM/ UA's McCarthy has high praise for her female colleagues, she admits that in the past she has "felt sabotaged" by executive secretaries. "It was jealousy of my position from someone on a lower level," she says. Corporate Lawyer Deborah Dugan, 29, recalls that when she joined a Los Angeles law firm, her assigned female secretary "refused to work for me. She said she would have trouble taking orders from another female."
How can women cope with these conflicts? Chicago's Frenkel believes professional women must stop taking another woman's success as a personal affront. "They have to separate out business from personal issues," she says. For some women, that's impossible, as Laura Srebnik, 33, a Manhattan computer educator, discovered when she suddenly found herself supervising a "dear friend" at a political lobbying group. The friend, she says, became hostile, talked about her behind her back and then quit. The parting explanation, says Srebnik, was "that I had become one of 'them' " -- the power structure. For some women in the workplace, that is still the ultimate insult.