[georgieporgie]

My (sexist?) experience:

The few women I've worked alongside as a software engineer have been fantastic. Easy to get along with, able to focus on work tasks and still have a great lunchtime conversation, with no alpha-nerd pedantic B.S.

The women I've worked for (three) have been universally terrible. Each in slightly different ways, but all had a strange, overcompensating quality to them. I'll just have to say it: bitchiness. Strange, control-freak tendencies and subsequent drama.

I've worked for two great male bosses, two idiots, and one brilliant guy who was an asshole (but at least he could be reasoned with). I would take all but one of the male bosses over any of the female bosses.

My conclusion isn't that women are bad managers, or anything like that. Rather, I believe it shows that people with lousy people skills are distributed across both sexes, and promoting worker bees to management positions is not an ideal plan.

[jarin]

I've had similar experiences. I think it's possible that the deck is stacked enough against women getting into positions of power that in general the women who get promoted past a certain level are the ones who overcompensate and act more like the stereotypical "ruthless businessman". Then again, that's kind of true for guys too (although to a lesser extent).

[JanezStupar]

I confirm this experience and the anecdotal evidence I gathered is quite similar.

Edit: Almost forgot - I also had a female boss I would work for in a beat. I must mention that she was more of a tomboy - but still what a woman: pragmatic, ambitious, decisive, tough but fair. All the general qualities one would expect from a man, but with added softness of female persuasion and communication skills.

[jarin]

It's funny how good female bosses are often described as "tomboyish". I'm starting to think "tomboy" is just a synonym for "assertive but likeable woman"

[khafra]

I always thought "tomboyish" meant "willing to climb a tree," with possible overtones of "hair shorter than shoulder length."