Female Bullies: What Drives Them?

Bullying is often seen as a behaviour linked to boys or men, but female bullies exist and can be just as harmful. Their tactics may differ however - more covert than overt - making it harder to identify them at first.

Understanding the dynamics present in female bullies helps people recognize and address this behaviour before it causes lasting damage.

This post explores some of their common traits and how we might better understand their behaviour, and its consequences, specifically from an existential perspective.

How Female Bullies Behave Differently

Female bullies often use indirect methods rather than open aggression, relying more heavily on manipulation and exclusion. Some typical behaviours include:

• Gossiping and spreading rumours to damage and denigrate reputations.

• Excluding others from groups or activities to isolate targets.

• Using sarcasm or backhanded compliments to undermine confidence.

• Portraying themselves as a victim to control the narrative, gain sympathy and avoid accountability for their actions.

• Manipulating friendships to control social dynamics and influence perspectives.

  
  

These tactics create a toxic environment in which the target feels powerless and unsure about the bully’s true intentions.

Signs to Watch Out For

Recognizing female bullies requires paying close attentions to patterns rather than isolated incidents. Here are some key signs to look for:

• Frequent social exclusion: Notice if someone is regularly left out of conversations, events, or group activities without clear reasons.

• Whispered conversations or sudden silence: When a group suddenly stops talking or changes their speech pattern when a certain person approaches, it may indicate gossip or plotting.

• Mixed messages: Female bullies often say one thing but mean another, such as giving compliments that feel like insults. This pattern of instability is common.

• Shifts in group dynamics: Watch for sudden changes in friendships or alliances, especially if someone is being isolated or targeted.

• Emotional reactions: Targets may show signs of anxiety, sadness, or withdrawal after interactions with certain individuals.

  
  

These signs often appear gradually, so observing patterns, both individually and collectively, over time is crucial. For example, gossip may appear first, followed by social exclusion and shift in group dynamics. Awareness of each of these, and how they fit together, is key to a broader understanding of what is going on.

The Effect On The Victim

Imagine a workplace where a woman consistently excludes a colleague from team lunches and is unfairly critical of her work ethic and competence. The colleague might feel isolated, question her place in the team, exhibit anxiety, and a marked decrease in self-confidence ultimately leading to depression and a strong desire to seek employment elsewhere.

As an Existential Analysis, I view bullying as a profound threat to an individual’s agency, ability to realise meaning, and sense of identity, often causing 'moral injury' or 'existential loneliness'. The struggle is centred around the ability to reclaim personal power, purpose, and self-definition in the face of forced powerlessness.

Bullies almost always draw other people in to their sphere of behaviour - this compounds the threat and can be overwhelming for an increasingly vulnerable target. That female bullying can be subtle and less overt often adds to feelings of increasing confusion, fuelling a gradual degradation of mental wellbeing.

"The moment you have to recruit people to put another person down, in order to convince someone of your value is the day you dishonor your children, your parents and your God. If someone doesn't see your worth the problem is them, not people outside your relationship". Shannon L. Alder

What About The Bully?

An existential understanding of bullies views them not merely as flawed, traumatised or 'broken' individuals, but as actors driven by profound insecurity, striving to create a distorted reality where they feel dominant, admired and important.

Bullies, whatever their persuasion, do not operate from a place of strength, despite the façade and psychological projection they employ. They often operate from a place of inauthentic existence, where they desperately attempt to curate their image by seeking to control external conditions that validate their own fragile self-worth; they do this by manipulating and diminishing others.

What is often present too is the bully's use of a faux morality to justify their behaviour - that is, constructing a narrative that casts them in the light of 'saving' others from the target. This manifests itself in several ways, with the counter-narrative being the sublimation of the bully's true motivations into their distorted characterisation of the target.

A Paradox Of Power?

It can be said that whilst the bully desperately endeavours to project power through their behaviour, the paradox is that they are de facto showing their deep seated lack of inner power and integrity. It is a sign of weakness, not power and authenticity, that leads to a person's transition to becoming a bully.

The target is the one who, by enduring such behaviour, and eventually overcoming it, demonstrates true strength and resilience. It is important to be aware of that reality.

Finally...

Bullying is a complex behaviour with a relatively well understood aetiology. The interplay of narcissism, fragile ego, and inauthenticity foments a toxic mix that can make the lives of others unbearable. It is never acceptable.

Female bullies share many traits of the male bully, albeit that their approach often appears to be less overt and more focused on social isolation, gossiping, and portraying themselves as a victim in relational dynamics.

There are ways that bullying can be effectively tackled - awareness is the first part of that, and that is what this short blog has tried to achieve.

I will, in a subsequent post, highlight the resources available to combat the bully at source, and also to restore self-confidence and belief for those who have been targeted.

In the end though, bullies never win, regardless of whether they are male or female.