I am starting my own business. It’s something I have been wanting to do for almost 10 years and finally I am (God willing) going to do it. Naturally people are giving me great advice when they hear that I am going to do this and all of them from experience. So all of them invaluable. But the one piece of advice that has come up without fail from every woman who has owned her own business or worked in a company with many employees is do not hire a lot of women. Make the majority of the people you hire men.
Now I can’t do this since the Business will be women and children only so I have to hire a staff of all women. I obviously was curious to why this is and they all say without fail women cannot work well together in big groups. They are competent, well educated, dedicated, achieving, but every single person who has been working in a big group of women have said the exact same thing!
I am wondering if this is cultural or if it true in other societies. What surprises me is it is the women who say this to me. Do we as women not know how to work together? How to be civil and not get personal when it comes to work relationships? Are we very competitive?
I haven’t worked with women before but I live with women all my life. and yes we disagree but we get things done. But we are family so any disagreements we have blow over as fast as they started.
What are your thoughts on this? Can women work well together? Or are men easier to work with?
yamaamaa.com 
I hear this a lot from women, too. I live in the US. I work as a freelancer, so I work alone. To be honest, I don’t like to work together with anyone – male or female! Hence, freelancing solo. Group work is like a version of hell for me. So, I am probably not the best person to answer this.
However, in the past, I have worked for various companies. I’ve worked with both men and women. In both cases, we got things done competently and in a timely manner. Although, the method in which we did things was different between the groups. I have a very logical, linear, and analytical mind. I do not want to generalize, here, and maybe this was just my luck, but I noticed that, with men, I would meet, talk about what needed to be done, then everyone would go to their corner, do it, meet back together, check to see it all fit, and then that’s it. With women, we’d work together, together and actually talk about stuff beyond the project, which I did not like as I just wanted to get it done and go.
But, again, both cases results in good, competent work, on time. So, I don’t think women can’t work together or men do it better. It’s just our methods differ. Maybe some women (like me, heh) prefer the male method and so we get the whole “don’t hire women” advise – though, I, personally, never say that.
HI B, I feel the same as these people do who you spoke to.
Women get too competitive and insecure too soon.
It then becomes a living hell to work. I have a female boss and she always as a rule over extends the meetings, likes to get personal, be on you FB and twitter, wants to know your blog page address……. and she has this girl who has been with her last 9 years. That girl spies for the boss amongst the team members. Makes the over all work environment pathetic.
So, when you run all women groups, be wary of negative people…
Hello B, I read your post then though long and hard about working with all women. I have never owned my own business, however I have been a “director” of a non profit for many years. I like working with all women, the problems I have had, tend to be more about different generations working together. For my purposes generation = 7 to 10 year age difference. Every generation thinks they know best lol. One thing to remember, when employing women, is that almost always women are also responsible for their children and households. So sometimes it is just not possible for them to give a 100% to the job, I always try to be understanding and supportive without getting to involved in their personal life.
Thats my Two cents! Good Luck. Oh what will your business be?