Rude and toxic female coworkers can be tricky to handle. They might make you feel disrespected, overlooked, or insignificant, but the truth is, their bad attitude backfires on them. It makes them look unprofessional, incompetent, and petty.
You can deal with rude and toxic female coworkers by repaying bad behavior with kindness, empathy, and professionalism. Call her out and try to uncover the reasons beyond her attitude toward you. Meanwhile, gather strong evidence you can use later on if you decide to escalate matters to management.
In this article, we will talk about ways you can deal with a rude and toxic female coworker without having to escalate matters into a full-blown conflict, including ignoring her disagreeable behavior, surrounding yourself with friends, and reciprocating her unpleasantness with kindness and empathy. I will also give tips on how best to directly approach your coworker, and if matters start becoming overwhelming, how to get help from your leaders. Let’s start!
How Do You Deal With Rude Female Coworkers?
Deal with a rude female coworker by reciprocating her disagreeable behavior with kindness. Try befriending her or inviting her to a private conversation where you can uncover relevant details about each other. However, as a final resort, report her to management and back your story with evidence.
Here are some tips:
1. Take It With a Grain of Salt
Keep in mind that, sometimes, people’s disagreeable behaviors aren’t aimed directly at you. It’s not personal and might even be their general way of interacting with their peers. Your female coworker’s unpleasant behavior can also be a result of the circumstances she’s in, so it can be an isolated case.
Other times, female coworkers become toxic and rude when they’re trying to make their way to the top. Women often believe they have a more challenging time working their way up the corporate ladder due to gender-related issues. Some feel that it’s necessary to undermine their peers just to get a leg up.
Giving no credence to a female coworker’s rudeness and toxicity can save you a lot of trouble. Simply brush it off as a non-issue and, hopefully, the matter will soon die down. Often, when toxic individuals gain no reaction from others, they feel foolish and embarrassed, and this might stop them from further antagonizing you.
Just make sure this doesn’t take a too big toll on your well-being; brushing it off is great, but only if you are truly able to.
2. Take the High Road
Instead of matching your coworker’s toxicity and rudeness, respond with kindness and empathy. She will most likely be taken aback and you will emerge as a professional, competent individual who isn’t perturbed by pettiness. You’ll end up earning the respect of your whole team.
Moreover, such a reaction can help you uncover the reasons behind her behavior. Maybe she’s going through a rough patch in her personal life or maybe she’s simply overwhelmed at work. Whatever the case may be, uncovering the reasons behind her unpleasant behavior may help you understand her actions better. It may even earn you a new friend at the end.
Here are some ways you can respond:
- Invite her to join you for lunch. This can provide you both an opportunity to get to know each other better. It’s a great way to eliminate any false assumptions and inaccurate conjectures you may have about each other.
- Ask her for advice about a certain issue at work. This may take her completely by surprise, but it’s a great way to make her take down their defenses.
- Buy her coffee. You can never go wrong with a good ol’ cup of joe.
3. Distance Yourself With Negativity
Keep your rude and toxic female coworker at arm’s length by surrounding yourself with the most positive and engaging people in the workplace. Having friends for support can certainly make the circumstances more tolerable. They can even help diffuse the situation by discouraging your female coworker from targeting you. Nobody wants to prey on someone who has friends who always have their back.
Make sure you and your friends don’t antagonize your rude coworker. Do not taunt or provoke her. Simply go about your daily activities at work, and when she sees that she’s not making an impact, she’ll soon realize you’re not worth the trouble and stop targeting you.
4. Don’t Add Fuel to the Fire
Whatever you do, don’t retaliate by giving her a dose of her own medicine. You will only be fanning the flames of hostility, and the situation can escalate into a conflict that can quickly spiral out of control.
Do not gossip about her either. This only feeds her ego and will make her think she’s making a significant impact on you. Talking about your rude female coworker behind her back can also backfire. It will make you look petty, vengeful, and unprofessional, and these are traits you would never want to be known for in the workplace.
If you need to vent and air out your side to diffuse some of the tension, talk to a discreet coworker and make sure any information you share won’t leak out to others. You can also turn to a family member or friend outside the workplace who will listen objectively to your story. They can even contribute to improving your circumstances by giving you sound advice based on the impartial perspective of a third party.
If you need to vent and air out your side to diffuse some of the tension, talk to a discreet coworker and make sure any information you share won’t leak out to others.
5. Call Her Out
Being straightforward with your rude female coworker might be the secret formula to nipping a potentially harmful situation in the bud. Engage her in a one-on-one conversation to let her know you don’t appreciate and won’t stand for such rudeness and toxicity. Don’t be too confrontational about it, but be firm, specific, and direct.
Here are some lines you might want to use:
- “I don’t appreciate being talked about behind my back. Please treat me with more respect and professionalism, especially since we both work in a reputable organization.”
- “Is there a reason why you’re being hostile toward me?”
- “Have I done something — which I may not be fully aware of — that made you dislike me this much?”
- “I get confused when you ignore me during meetings. Is there a reason why you’re treating me this way?”
- “I feel disrespected when I hear your remarks about me from our teammates. If you have issues with me, I would appreciate it if you talked to me about them rather than talking about me behind my back.”
6. Use a Methodical Approach
Keep everything documented. Solid pieces of evidence will come in handy in case you need to escalate the matter later on. Once things start getting nasty (not before), keep track of your conversations with your rude female coworker by writing down the dates and details of particularly unpleasant dialogues. Save a copy of email exchanges and screenshot text conversations.
When push comes to shove, and you’ve done everything you can to diffuse the tension but things have already spiraled beyond your control, your last resort might be to formally call out your female coworker’s bad behavior and mistreatment of you. Escalate the matter to your leaders in the workplace and provide all the evidence you’ve gathered. You can also ask some of your coworkers to stand in as witnesses to corroborate your claims.
I want to make this very clear; before you report someone to upper management, you must take the time to speak with the individual in question. Nobody wants a culture where people go behind each other backs.
Key Takeaways
Dealing with rude and toxic female colleagues can be tricky, but all it takes is consistency, professionalism, and a high level of self-respect to let them know you don’t appreciate, and will never stand for such unfair and needless treatment.
Let her know early on so you can nip the issue in the bud. You can also try to befriend her because there’s a chance there are merely inaccurate assumptions getting in the way. As a last resort, you can always escalate the matter to higher management, but be sure to back your claims with strong evidence and reliable witnesses.
