Are women more conniving in the work place?

 Reality TV addicts will all know of the underhand tactics employed in the lastest additon of BBC One’s The Apprentice, where Sir Alan Sugar fired not one but two women.

 It was blood thirsty moment when Jenny, Claire and Sara mercilessly backstabbed one another in the desperate bid to win Sir Alan’s approval. This incident does not stand alone, female fire has been breathed throughout the entire series leaving the male contestants in the shadows.

Is this a new breed of women in the workplace? And if so how did it come about? Were they already ruthless and manipulative titans ready to be released? Or has the pressures and expectations of the working industry started an evolution, where women must play mental games and use dirty tactics in the fight for survivial?

 Former contestant Jennifer Maguire was labelled ‘a snake’ by her other team mates. Jennifer Maguire told the BBC that it was these comments which killed her passion for winning the TV show. She said: “Comments about me being cold and evil and a snake - that’s all very personal. After I had people accuse me of being like that, my heart wasn’t in it any more.” To read more of the interview visit

                               http://www.bbc.co.uk/apprentice/newsarticle/cid/148.html

The main question to ask here is if these women are more conniving then where have these women developed their tactics from? If they are devious surely they have only adapted to their surroundings, learning the rules of the game from the men. As women have a bitch about the new employee behind their back guaranteed the men will be ripping the same employee to shreds at a local pub.

 It could well be termed another gender difference. How easy would it be to say that Men are from Mars and Women are from a planet that bitches alot? However you cannot overlook that scheming and plotting is just another method to get by in any office by men and women.

In a challenging and competitve atomsphere of The Apprentice where there is everything to play for (not only reputation but also quite a nice double figure salary) then you can hardly blame contestants for raising the stakes. While women may be the sly snakes of the grass men are the brass bulls of the field, bulldozing down obstacles in their way.

For males it’s a dog eat dog world, the odd catfight won’t make the slightest bit of difference.