By Cathay Yenana:
In glossy recruitment brochures and women’s leadership panels, we often hear about Empowerment, Mentorship, and Sisterhood. Yet behind the slogans, in many modern professional workspaces, a quieter betrayal brews, as younger women target, exclude, and undermine their older female colleagues.
It’s a form of gendered aggression few want to name, because it disrupts the comforting narrative of female solidarity. But if you speak to enough women in their forties, fifties, and sixties, you’ll hear it whispered, this new face of bullying often wears lipstick and a graduate badge.
Bullying in the workplace has become a multifaceted, often gendered phenomenon. While much research has centred on horizontal bullying between same-age peers or male-dominated harassment, patterns are emerging where younger women direct sustained hostile behaviours at older women, undermining their status, questioning their competence, or excluding them from networks.
These dynamics are shaped by overlapping psychological processes, social biases, and organisational structures that reward youth or physical appearance.
It begs the question, Why does this cross-generational, same-gender bullying occur? What mechanisms sustain it, and how should organisations and legal systems respond?
We know that workplace bullying has always existed, but the cultural texture of this new phenomenon is distinctly generational. Younger women, raised in an era that prizes visibility over substance, are often rewarded for confidence, presentation, and online polish.
Professional culture has become performative, success measured not only by achievement but by optics. In such an environment, lookism becomes both social currency and a competitive weapon. Youth, attractiveness, and digital fluency are prized assets, while age, experience, and quiet authority are subtly devalued.
For the younger woman seeking to establish dominance in this climate, the older woman can become a living reminder of what culture has taught her to fear most: Invisibility.
The seasoned professional, competent, composed, perhaps less invested in surface validation, exposes the fragility of a value system built on attention and aesthetic capital. A perfect scene where envy disguises itself as ambition, and subtle sabotage replaces respect.
Psychologists describe female-pattern narcissism as a variant shaped less by grandiose arrogance and more by relational control, comparison, and the need for admiration. It thrives on reflection, how one is seen, validated, and mirrored back by others.
In professional spaces where external affirmation is scarce and internal insecurity high, the older woman becomes both a mirror and a threat.
She embodies professional maturity that the younger narcissistic personality cannot yet authentically claim, and her mere presence can trigger a deep, unconscious hostility of “If she exists, I am less.”
Unlike overt male bullying, this aggression is often covert — gossip disguised as concern, social exclusion framed as team chemistry, passive-aggressive emails couched in performative professionalism.
It’s an art of undermining with plausible deniability, weaponising charm and compliance to erode another woman’s credibility. The cruelty is rarely loud, but it is consistent and corrosive.
Part of the tragedy lies in what can be called cultural amnesia, society’s collective forgetting of women’s labour, leadership, and legacy once they age out of visibility.
Every decade brings new firsts for women that are rarely acknowledged as seconds or thirds built on the shoulders of others. This erasure normalises the idea that older women are obsolete rather than essential.
Younger women, unconsciously shaped by that amnesia, may internalise the same bias. They are taught subtly but pervasively that professional relevance is a finite resource, expiring around midlife.
In that context, the older woman is not a mentor but a mirror of what the culture insists must be shed: wrinkles, restraint, reflection.
The act of bullying, then, becomes not just personal but symbolic, an attempt to erase what the broader society refuses to honour.
Lookism in professional spaces doesn’t just affect hiring or promotions; it infiltrates identity. Women are taught to compete through aesthetics long before they compete through skill.
A younger woman’s sense of professional worth may unconsciously rest on how closely she aligns with the corporate ideal: energetic, attractive, perpetually polished. The older woman, even when stylish and self-assured, carries a body the culture has deemed less marketable. That dissonance breeds tension.
In the economy of lookism, youth sells — but wisdom seldom trends. The result is a workplace that rewards surface over substance and pits women against each other in a hierarchy defined by desirability rather than depth. Both groups lose: the younger woman becomes trapped in a cycle of anxious self-display, and the older woman becomes invisible, until she becomes a target.
In professional environments, lookism intersects powerfully with what can be called cultural amnesia. Female-pattern narcissism, often shaped by cultural conditioning that ties a woman’s value to her appearance and social validation, thrives in such conditions.
Younger women socialised to equate self-worth with visibility and desirability may unconsciously internalise these biases and replicate them at work, perpetuating hierarchies of beauty over competence.
Meanwhile, institutions forget—or choose to ignore—the accumulated wisdom and intellectual capital of older women, erasing their narratives from professional memory. This cultural amnesia not only diminishes the perceived relevance of experienced women but also fuels the narcissistic culture of comparison and self-display that lookism sustains.
In this cycle, appearance-based valuation replaces meritocratic recognition, and the professional sphere becomes yet another stage where the female body is both the currency and the casualty of attention.
Few organisations are equipped to address this form of bullying, precisely because it hides beneath the surface of personality clashes or generational misunderstandings. HR departments often struggle to categorise covert relational aggression, especially when the aggressor presents as charming, compliant, or high-performing.
Yet the cost is measurable: diminished morale, early retirements, loss of institutional knowledge, and fractured workplace trust.
The emotional toll on older women is profound. Many report self-doubt, isolation, and a loss of confidence, the slow erosion of identity that comes not from overt insult but from a steady diet of micro-dismissals. Their trauma is compounded by disbelief when society assumes women are natural nurturers, who believe them capable of cruelty?
To break this cycle, both cultural and institutional change are needed. Organisations must broaden their definitions of harassment to include relational aggression and covert bullying.
Leadership programs should explicitly address intergenerational empathy, teaching younger women that the success of one generation need not come at the expense of another. And culturally, we must challenge the myths that feed the dynamic, that beauty equals value, that youth equals innovation, and that age equals decline.
Older women, for their part, must reclaim visibility not through mimicry of youth but through unapologetic presence, mentoring when possible, confronting when necessary, and refusing to shrink to fit a narrative that was never theirs to begin with.
Professional workspaces should be a mirror in which women across generations can see possibility, not competition. Yet as long as lookism dictates value and cultural amnesia erases history, that mirror will remain cracked.
Young women bullying older women isn’t just a moral failure; it’s a cultural symptom of a world that still measures women by how they appear rather than what they achieve.
Across continents, common elements recur; the co-occurrence of high-power-distance cultures may mask bullying behind hierarchical prerogative.
In cultures with strong reverence for elders, this phenomenon of young women bullying older women in professional workspaces may experience reduced incidents, while highly youth-oriented industries like tech, media could have more incidents; however, legal protections and institutional recourse vary widely, affecting reporting rates and remedies.
To demystify this phenomenon, Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith, Creator & Director of The New Orleans Legacy Project (A Movement & A Film), and I reflect candidly on this growing yet under-explored form of workplace aggression of younger women bullying older women.
photo credit Peter G. Forest
Circa 2019 Peter G. Forest
Cathay Yenana: Have you ever experienced or witnessed younger women behaving in undermining or bullying ways toward older female colleagues?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Absolutely. I’ve witnessed it firsthand through my work, advocating for The New Orleans Four and the elders of the New Orleans Resistance Movement. Many of these women and men, now in their seventies through nineties, are pioneers who sacrificed childhood innocence, personal safety, and decades of peace to open doors for future generations.
Yet, I’ve watched younger women in positions of influence, women who should be honouring them, treat these elders with dismissiveness, impatience, or even subtle forms of gaslighting. It’s heartbreaking to see a seventy-one-year-old Civil Rights icon spoken to as if she were an inconvenience rather than a national treasure. That’s not just disrespect, it’s generational erasure disguised as professional efficiency.
Cathay Yenana: Has there been a situation where you felt targeted by a younger female colleague, and how did it affect you?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: In my advocacy work, when pushing for proper commemoration of The New Orleans Four’s 65th Anniversary, I encountered a younger city staffer whose tone and handling of my request for Ms Etienne’s request were strikingly dismissive.
She minimised the importance of a historic date, offered a token gesture in place of true recognition, and treated us as if we should be grateful for scraps. Although the comments weren’t directed at me personally, I felt targeted by extension because I stood up for the elders and their dignity.
It was emotionally draining, but it also deepened my resolve. When younger professionals treat history as optional, they perpetuate a cycle of devaluation that hurts us all.
Cathay Yenana: Do you think the bullying was more about age, gender, or personality differences or a mix of all three?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: It’s all three, but age and power insecurity sit at the root. Younger women in authority may feel that recognising the magnitude of what older women accomplished will diminish their own shine. When the currency of recognition is visibility and virality, humility and reverence can feel threatening.
Gender adds another layer because women are often conditioned to compete for limited space instead of expanding the table. That scarcity mindset can twist admiration into envy.
Cathay Yenana: How did these experiences differ from conflicts you may have had with male colleagues?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Men, at least in my experience, tend to confront disagreement more directly. With women, especially younger women operating in image-driven systems, the aggression is often relational, subtle, and cloaked in politeness.
It manifests through exclusion, revisionism, or the quiet silencing of one’s voice under the guise of protocol. That subtlety makes it harder to call out, and therefore more dangerous to legacy work like mine, which depends on truth-telling and respect.
Cathay Yenana: Looking back, what coping strategies helped you most in those moments?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Faith, reflection, and community. I ground myself in the elders’ example—how they faced mobs, insults, and systemic exclusion with grace. I remind myself that I stand in their lineage.
I also lean on my creative practice as a filmmaker and activist to transform frustration into narrative power. Every attempt to silence or diminish us becomes material for the movement and for the film.
Cathay Yenana: Do you think envy plays a role in how younger women treat older women at work?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Without question. Envy is the hidden engine behind much intergenerational cruelty. When younger women see older women who are still radiant, relevant, and respected, it can trigger unresolved feelings of insecurity or competition. But true leadership recognises that someone else’s light doesn’t dim your own; it amplifies the room.
Cathay Yenana: How do appearance and lookism shape dynamics between women across generations?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: In image-driven professional spaces, youth and aesthetic appeal are often rewarded more than wisdom or integrity. For older women, especially Black women, the pressure to remain “visible” or “palatable” is intensified.
I’ve seen elders dismissed because their style or age doesn’t fit a curated brand of modern professionalism. That’s not just lookism, it’s cultural amnesia.
Cathay Yenana: In your view, do unresolved family or maternal issues sometimes spill into professional relationships between younger and older women?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Yes, deeply. Many young women unconsciously project unresolved maternal wounds onto older women in power. When an elder exudes authority, nurturing, or correction, it can trigger buried pain.
That pain then disguises itself as disdain, rebellion, or dismissal. Healing that cycle requires emotional intelligence—something professional training alone can’t teach.
Cathay Yenana: Have you ever felt that a younger woman projected her insecurities onto you?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Yes. I’ve felt the tension of being labelled too passionate or too ambitious, when the real discomfort was someone else’s unease with conviction and clarity. Projection allows people to distance themselves from qualities they secretly admire but haven’t yet owned. I’ve learned not to take it personally, but it takes discipline.
Cathay Yenana: How do you distinguish between healthy competition and destructive, envy-driven behaviour?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Healthy competition pushes you to excellence, but destructive envy seeks to erase your contribution. One builds community, the other breeds isolation. If someone can’t celebrate another woman’s success without feeling threatened, that’s not competition, that’s corrosion.
Cathay Yenana: How do professional cultures that prize youth affect how younger women treat older women?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: They normalise disrespect. When institutions glorify freshness, they implicitly frame wisdom as obsolete. That message trickles down, giving younger women permission to treat elders like outdated technology instead of living archives of experience.
Cathay Yenana: Do you think organisations unintentionally encourage this bullying by how they reward younger employees?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Absolutely. When organisations celebrate speed, optics, and performative inclusion over substance, they breed entitlement. Without intentional intergenerational mentorship, younger professionals are rewarded for visibility instead of vision and that fuels arrogance instead of empathy.
In your view, how well do managers typically handle conflicts where a younger woman is bullying an older woman?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Poorly. Many managers, especially if they’re younger, don’t even recognise relational aggression when they see it. Because it isn’t loud or violent, they call it a misunderstanding. The result is that older women quietly withdraw, while the aggressor is often rewarded for taking initiative.
Cathay Yenana: What patterns of bullying do you see as unique to women bullying other women?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: It’s the subtle sabotage, exclusion from meetings, forgetting to forward critical emails, tone-policing, or rewriting history to centre themselves. These actions are hard to prove but devastating over time. They erode confidence, credibility, and connection.
Cathay Yenana: Do you think some younger women with narcissistic traits use subtle relational aggression, like gossip or exclusion, rather than direct confrontation?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Yes. The most sophisticated bullies operate through social choreography; they manage impressions, craft narratives, and use gossip as currency. In activism and media spaces, that can destroy reputations faster than facts can repair them. It’s narcissism dressed as networking.
Cathay Yenana: How does being a woman in a male-dominated industry affect your ability to respond to bullying from younger women?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: It complicates it. When you call out bullying, you risk reinforcing sexist stereotypes about women being emotional or catty. So many of us choose silence to protect our credibility. But silence is complicity, and that’s why I choose storytelling to expose these dynamics without losing my voice.
Cathay Yenana: What advice would you give to younger women about building healthier, more supportive relationships with older women?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: Understand that honouring those who came before you is not submission—it’s evolution. The bridges you burn in arrogance may be the very bridges you’ll need when the world stops applauding your youth. Practice gratitude, ask questions, and listen. You can’t lead what you refuse to learn from.
Cathay Yenana: If you could change one workplace law, policy, or cultural norm to reduce this kind of bullying, what would it be?
Diedra “Deepa Soul” Meredith: I would push for a Legacy Protection Policy, a framework that recognises cultural and historical contribution as a form of intellectual labour deserving of protection, especially for elders in social movements, academia, and the arts.
Reflection: Institutions should be held accountable not just for pay equity, but for respect equity, ensuring that wisdom and history are not marginalised in the name of modernity. It’s clear that young women bullying older women at work is not reducible to a single cause.
Addressing this growing phenomenon requires multi-layered responses, clearer legal recognition, stronger organisational policy and culture change, including clinical interventions for both perpetrators and targets and research that disaggregates gendered and generational dynamics.
As for here in South Africa, the legal framework provides a foundation, but practical questions about evidentiary thresholds, remedies, and prevention remain urgent.
Recognising these dynamics is the first step toward professional workspaces where intergenerational collaboration, not conflict, becomes the norm. My take is that perhaps the true rebellion is solidarity, women choosing to remember one another instead of replacing one with the other. – @NewsSA_Online
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