Dude I don't even think age makes a difference. A few months back CEO brings in friend to help with a strategic capture effort. Friend is like late 60's, and was effectively run out of her last job and has a rep in the industry of being a pain in the ass and a moron. I didn't know this, she asks me a question and I shit you not my email was "Hey, I don't have access to that information I think this person might be the person you want to reach out to you, I'm sorry for not being more helpful please continue to reach out to me if you have questions".
She told the CEO I sent her a snotty email.
And then after seeing the email I sent her, all the directors, VP, and President of the company, who already weren't super huge fans of hers wrote her off. She's a complete joke now. And I mean I had only been at the company for 4 months at the time it wasn't them circling the wagons or anything.
But come the fuck on. You are like 60 years old and you act like this? The fuck is wrong with you?
Lol, I don't doubt it. Generally, once women reach 35+ in the workplace the looks/dress competition dies out of them, so that particular aspect of drama goes away. Insecurity and defensiveness, which is another root cause for a lot of drama can certainly persist.
I'll put myself at risk of being a chauvinistic asshole here, but as a manager I will probably never willingly hire a woman, at least not in IT. Now I'll add here that I work in IT infrastructure, so the opportunity to even hire one has almost never presented itself (maybe 1/50 resumes are female, no exaggeration), but after witnessing what males managers have to deal with in regards to their female employees in other departments, I see zero potential benefits with plenty of drawbacks. Drama with other girls, insecurity over work product criticism, endless hour long closed door 1 on 1 meetings because she's pissed about something. When employee reviews come up, the male managers dread having to give a "below expectations" review, because half the time she's going to burst into tears and take it super personally. Again, this diminishes as the woman gets older, but in the 23-35 age group, it's pretty much an accurate generalization. Those women who don't act like this, and can essentially "play with the boys" instead of acting like some special snowflake with "protected status" in the workplace are the one's that get respect and promoted.
At my previous job I had access to the HR system, and it revealed some interesting stats. Over the course of five years, in a firm with 800 employees, there were 140 complaints filed with HR against another person. This is about 7 years ago, but I still remember my surprise..
-80% of the complaints were filed by women
-Of those female initiated complaints, 60% were against other women
-Of those female on female complaints, 40% were for "dress code violations". Yes I'm serious. These were women complaining about another women looking slutty. I clearly remember one specifically noting "can see black bra through white blouse".
-The rest of the female on female complaints were mainly for "spreading false/demeaning information", "verbal abuse", and "suspicion of inappropriate intra-office relationships"
- The majority of female on male complaints were for: sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and inappropriate comments