Vanessa Vershaw | Do Women Bully Other Women at Work?

When we talk about the barriers women face at work, we often look outward—at sexism, systems, and leadership gaps. But what if one of the biggest barriers is women bully other women? In this powerful episode, Di Gillett speaks with Vanessa Vershaw—organisational psychologist, coach, and author of The Sisterhood Paradox—about a silent epidemic: women undermining other women.

Vanessa shares the deeply personal and data-driven reasons she wrote The Sisterhood Paradox, revealing that 70% of women who are bullied at work are bullied by other women. From high-performing executive environments to schoolyards and reality TV, Vanessa and Di explore how cultural narratives, unconscious bias, and scarcity-driven mindsets are fuelling female-to-female bullying—and what we must do to dismantle it.

In this episode, we explore:

• The psychological scars bullying leaves on women at all career stages
• The rise of mobbing and passive-aggressive workplace tactics
• Why media glamorisation of toxic female behaviour is dangerous
• The steps leaders—and individuals—can take to create cultural change

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