Elizabeth Heilman (1998) pointed out that the idea of bitter competition among women is ingrained in much of Western literature. She points to the story of Cinderella as a prime example of such tales. While rivalry and competition are present in interpersonal relationships among women, cooperative and collaborative behaviour characterizes most interpersonal relationships among women. Some professional women, such as Judith Briles (1999) and Tara Madden (1987), make careers out of promoting the idea that competition among women in organizations is rife to the point of being out of control. Schaef (1995) argues persuasively that women tend to pursue objectives in organizational with behaviours that are markedly different from those of competitive and aggressive males. The accurate characterization of the behaviour of most women in contemporary organizational environments lies at a point somewhere along the continuum connecting these polar extremes.
This literature review is in support of a thesis that explores the interpersonal relationships and behaviours of women in the Canadian military forces. The behavioural focus of the thesis is on interpersonal behaviours that are characterized by rivalry and competition among women in the Canadian forces. The literature presented in this paper, however, focuses on the social development of females in society.
Marion Underwood (2003b) studies the causes of social aggression among children in the nine through 14 years old age group. In these studies, social aggression includes behaviours such as exclusion, friendship manipulation, malicious gossip, and non-verbal efforts that focus on alienation and manipulation. Underwood (2003a) feels that social aggression is especially harmful to girls. The researchers attributed social aggression in large part to "rough and tumble" intersexual play, which boys tended to view in terms of dominance, while girls tended to view such behaviour ...