It is as dangerous to steroetype Alpha Females as it is to say all Alpha Males are egomaniacs whose work-life balance is out of kilter. But in my experience Alpha Females share more characteristics than do Alpha Males. Many Alpha Females I have met have been ruthless and contemptuous of men who are below them in the hierarchy. Is this because women must be more ruthless than men to succeed? Why do Alpha Females usually marry men who are passive? I think of Mrs Margaret Thatcher the former British Prime Minister who is an ultra-Alpha. She was married happily to a businessman who no one would have classed as an Alpha Male. Alpha Males come in so many shapes and sizes it is tough to generalise about them. Often I have liked Alpha Males I have met. I can't say the same about most of the Alpha Females I have encountered.

In Unmasking the Alpha Male (October 19 ) I proposed the theory of the Alpha Plus Male. I argued this person has evolved from the traditional egomaniacal and work obsessed Alpha to a more balanced individual. Can we apply this concept to Alpha Females? I believe we can.

I take Gill’s point Alpha women are more varied than their male counterparts. There are obvious reasons for this. Alpha Females must satisfy the demands of husband and children. If they are single then they risk whispers at work. As women they are judged on appearance though any aspiring Alpha Male today who is not groomed is going to fail. Alpha Females must be dynamic but also be feminine.

Most Alpha Females fall below these standards. Husband and children are status symbols as much as the company car with 0 to 60 mph acceleration in five seconds is for an Alpha Male. Many have impressed bosses by being more demanding than male rivals. Some wilfully exploit their femininity to gain advantage.

The Alpha Plus Female is a woman who understands the responsibility of power, She balances the demands of work with family. She respects peers and values subordinates. Like the Alpha Plus Male she is more valuable to her organisation than an ordinary Alpha.

Alpha males radiate power and confidence. We have all worked with them. We can list their characteristics. I agree with Gill when she says alpha females are more complicated. To succeed at work a woman must develop her own style. She might chose to be ultra feminine to show she is bringing different qualities to the party. She might chose to show she is as interested in her family as in work to prove she has a work-life balance. She might chose to be tougher than the alpha males. Gill, I don't think we can avoid talking about age, appearance, and the different standards of behaviour for men and women if we are to have a meaningful discussion about the place of women in business today. I think you are right to say culture plays a major part in determining how and if women can succeed. An alpha woman must behave differently in the US to France or the UK. But how can a woman hope to become an alpha in societies where traditionally women are only permitted to support men?

I agree these three women are remarkable. However only Horlick was in business and then not in a conventional corporate sense. She was a top fund manager and such people, whether men or women, are quasi-independent entrepreneurs. They are Alphas by virtue of the wealth they generate and earn. Unlike women in corporate environments Horlick did not have to concern herself with the dynamics of an organisation. Brady is a multi talented woman, who transformed a football club that was heading for the knacker's yard into a healthy business. And she did that that in an industry run by chauvinist men who think a woman's place is in the home. Brady might have prospered in a conventional company. But we do not know. Rimington was a career spy and a highly intelligent and impressive woman. But would she have succeeded in manufacturing, banking or a service industry? Perhaps the qualities required to rise in M15 would have been perceived as flaws elsewhere?

An Alpha female in business is not going to be the same as an Alpha female in fund management. And I would argue she will be entirely different from an Alpha female in football management or espionage.

I have worked with many alpha females in my industry (creative media) and do not buy the idea they are more interesting, more complicated, more courageous, whatever, than alpha males. For sure they are not the same. Alpha males are full of themselves and don't care how they are perceived except by their bosses. Alpha females are more subtle. They want to be seen as nicer yet are more ruthless than men.

In a commentary about Mrs Hilary Clinton in the London Guardian (The dilemma faced by the frontrunner is not unique to women: how to navigate prejudice to put the mainstream at ease, 12 November) the columnist Gary Younge echoed Gill.

Though writing about an American politician not a business woman Mr Younge wrote that more than any other candidate for the Presidency Mrs Clinton had to "assert her toughness....and find a way to underplay her femininity so that it does not become an electoral liability." But she also had to show she was not trying to be a man since that would alienate voters of both sexes. All women in the public eye faced similar pressures, wrote Younge.

These are the problems facing any woman who finds herself competing with Alpha males. Do they have to be more male than men to succeed? Or should they demonstrate that feminity has its own strengths?

Yes. Alpha females are more dangerous than Alpha males. They have to be. They must be cleverer and work harder than Alpha males. Even in societies proclaiming equality between the sexes there is inequality. Recent surveys in the British press show senior women in business in the UK earn much less than men in similar jobs. In countries where women are not considered to possess 'masculine' functions, because of history, culture or religion, an Alpha female has to display super-heroic qualities to succeed. Tapping into the potential of women to shape our world - through politics, business and other important fields - is the great challenge of facing us.

The qualities required for a woman to succeed in fund management, football and the security services are different. Might I propose some attributes: intellect, intregity, patriotism,ambition, greed, passion, modesty, arrogance. foresight. What we are talking about is not a different approach because of gender but a different attitide in the broadest sense, between people who are only worried about personal, material rewards and those who want more. I agree with earlier readers. Business today attracts the best and the brightest amongst our young, which it did not do in the past. It behoves us to inspire these brilliant young men and women to do more than earn money for shareholders. I believe that the 21 st century will see business asssuming many of the traditional roles of government. I also am convinced that women wll be in the vanguard of this movement.

Dear Gill,

Greetings;

‘Masculine’ culture and the most ‘feminine’

The above phrase from your article says all. Humans are divided into Masculine and Feminine. Society has always put them in different roles. Some people say that these are divine roles. Some say that they are ethnic roles; some put them in a bracket of society’s alignment to progression requirements of mankind etc.

The matter should be looked into as an internal and global. Internal means localized and restricted to households. Global means external and involves the affairs of human management for the betterment of humans.

The documented history of hunter society and primitive society talks more of males and their engagements. The fun, sensation, and a sense of challenge are felt more in external affairs and this still persists. That’s why the degree of masculinity and femininity is talked and measured more in this external or global zone. The role of females is less expressive in these history documents. Therefore, the society is labeled as Masculine where as females were quite in an active role in substantial progressions of mankind like producing and raising of the future generations. Human population explosion brought the emergence of an agriculture age and alterered human thoughts. This change compelled the two and in the first phase the role of females got extended as they entered in the external zone to share the ever demanding role of males for more productivity. Most of the mankind has actually remained in defined roles for women as internal and for males as global. The history ascribes to a divine prescription of roles to this in most of the societies that has existed in the past and this myth still continues to exist.

Every labeled age has emerged just out of one compellation and that is to feed the ever growing human population. According to me this equation of less resources and more population has resulted because of inequality in distribution of wealth and resources both within the society and outside the society. In equality of wealth and resources in a family is bound to result in few having good food and others may be starving in an extreme situation.

The human sojourn commenced from hunter age to agriculture age, followed by industrial age and currently floating under the umbrellas of digital age. As industrial age came on landscape , one corner of the world managed the equation of less resources and more population by bringing caps on the population growth, more innovation in the gadgets , more output of humans and a balancing act in the two male and females roles. Both got their roles extended and initially taken as encroachments in each others zones but later labeled as accommodating. Female’s participation has increased globally and males have started contributing in internally.

Conclusion:

It’s the emergences of a situation followed by realization of it leading to the exploration of a solution for it and in accordance the re- alignment of the male and female roles.

With warm regards,

Farooq Ahmed
Director Marketing
fa_wll@hotmail.com

"What do you think distinguishes them from alpha males?"

Their accent.

There is no biological equality between the sexes.

Males and females are designed for different purposes--they will always be "apples and oranges". We jump the rails when we start comparing them and trying to decide which is the superior of the two.

Alpha males and females are similar in many ways inside their own populations, but many traits are specific to their sex.

Traits in common include:

Alpha by brutality or consensus.
Sexually attractive to the opposite sex.
Jealousy of mate or mates.
Intelligence or cunning (either will do)
Success in one or more pursuits.

The hard wiring of alpha behavior is all about projecting dna into the future, so it seems a little silly for people to be talking about evolution costing them a promotion at work.

Success in a chosen field is a trait that is much more important to the female alpha in judging a male alpha than it will ever be in the reverse. Donald Trump without money, would be an ugly jerk that would never get laid--Angelina Jolie without money would still be an alpha queen to the entire male population alpha and beta alike.

In the absence of a true alpha female, the alpha male will go for the quantity over quality route in mating behavior--sending his own dna into the future with as many accepting females as possible. The alpha female's role would be to destroy all female competition and to impress on the alpha male the advantage of genetic monogamy.

Don't cross these chicks anywhere.

R.L.Mann