I am the Alpha female you speak of and if I had my wish, there would be no double standard in the workplace. In every company I have ever worked in, there are one, two or three known "workplace bullies"...those males in some position of manageble authority who think attacking personally is acceptable behavior. They serve to diminish teamwork and poison a otherwise good work environment, yet they are dismissed by other males in management as "just having an agressive personality". These gents are diffrent from "agressive" and "assertive" folks in the workplace and deserve a forum of discussion of their own. I bring them up only because they are the extreme in bad workplace behavior, yet seem to be generally tolerated and excused in corporate life. Conversely, as an "agressive" or "assertive" female, I am labelled "difficult","scary", "intimidating" or some other equally unflattering and stereotypical category that does not bode well for advancement to the executive ranks. I am never purposefully rude or belittling of a co-worker. The women that work for me have expressed great deals of satisfaction in my being there and as having me for their manager, however, my male peers often compare notes on my "assertiveness" as a negative trait. I am not tentative by nature, but instead, will cut right to the point and ask the hard questions. That trait is admired in the male ranks of my company, but not welcome in the female ranks. At 50 years old, I am tired of continuously having to stifle who I am and the very thing that makes me a strong leader in order to fit in with my male counterparts. I take particular issue with companies that tolerate "bullies" proliferating fear and unhappiness in a place that would be much better without allowing those behaviors. It simply is twice as hard in the workplace being an assertive woman. I sometimes wish I were tentative and demure in my style so that it could be easier, but somehow I am sure that too would also be a negative to the male managers that promote.

Why does a double standard have to be acknowledged or blaming me or "society" for giving women a hard time. Please, we have to let this sympathetic game go. There are women who are assertive and aggressive, we can't always cry wolf if someone (particularly) a man disagrees.

I'm a woman. When I was GM at a firm, we had one older (than the rest of the staff) woman staffer who lashed out and screamed in the office at peers, in public areas of the office. She was addressed. At a much later, unrelated staff meeting, she claimed she was an "Alpha female" to which everyone around the conf table verbally or through body language said, "Ooooo-h. Oh." As in, That explains why she thinks she can scream and yell and "be superior" (only in her own mind) AND be disrespectful of everyone else. Why are women who are actually Alphas (i.e., me and my kind of my generation) have to be classified and labeled one way only, by this ancient stereotype of "when men are assertive they're "leaders" - when women are assertive, they're labeled "aggressive"?" I am quite balanced, stable and well-adjusted. Even Fortune 1000 Mg Dir-level clients have verbalized this verbatim. Clients and the majority of staff respect and work well via my guidance. Isn't it time to recognize real "leaders" of either gender don't have to be attacking angry level-10 operators?