I went back to school in my 30s to become a professional. I went from a typical male job to an office environment. Although I am very respectful, cooperative and non-dominant, being male was the kiss of death. In short, my professional career is now over. They ran me off. 15 years down the drain.

Mike Frazier, Fayetteville, AR, USA

Females have a far more complex agenda attached to nearly everything. Working with primarily women for years (I'm an American school teacher) has proven it! Males handle things in an up-front manner and "what you see is what you get." My very best friends are usually blunt and honest, like males!

Tricia Summersfield, Boca Raton, FL, USA

I work with women, my boss is a woman and unfortunately I have to say that India Knight is right.
It has been really difficult for me and I have always been the person who supported sisterhood and always thought that women should help one another in a world dominated by men which is not happening.

SH.K , Prishtina, Kosova

Now that I am 8 just years off retirement, I can claim to have worked for many bosses in my time, male and female, and whilst not all those bosses were good, I have to say the majority of women I worked for were either unpleasant, not up to the job, or sadly in some cases outright bullies.

Rick, Oswestry, UK

I think part of the problem highlighted with the women only teams may also be down to management styles. The best all woman team I worked with had a manager who was focused on getting the job done, was a good example to the workers r.e. timekeeping, etc and did not engage in petty lunch room gossip.

ML, Aberdeen,

The office bully here is a female. She turns up late, can't even copy and paste between two MS Word documents, snaps her fingers at people then tries to deny staff their right to have a lunch break. Of course she's the first to complain of sexism whenever we don't want her to be our line manager.

Luke Nicolaides, London, UK

Fair point about lack of women in top jobs these days being more about choice than overt sexism (counterexamples still exist though). Problem is that women are damned either way, whereas men (even if many do suffer silently) at least have one choice - working - for which few will criticise them.

Margaret, Durham,

Well first of all, I don't see how anyone could accuse Siralun of being sexist. I seem to recall quite a few female apprentices in the past.

As for women being harder to work with and all backstabby and bitchy well that's just nonsense. Never had any problems with my female colleagues.

Kate, Cardiff,

I can't believe the negative generalisations about women in this piece, no wonder it produced responses like John from litchfield ie 'women don't like each other much - not even mothers and daughters'. It is far too subjective and doesn't relate female behaviour to broader socio-cultural factors

becky, London,

So now it's endearing to lie on your CV. Picture the head of a selection team: "We've discovered you lied about your First at Oxford, and I want to tell you that we find that most endearing."

Kevin Straw, Leicester,

It is always a mistake to use absolutes. Not all women hate each other, not all women managers are bad bosses and not all men are great bosses. Both Claire and Lee were rough around the edges but both had talent. In the end Lee was just more likable.

Mary Grant, Canterbury,

Women just don't like each other much. Even mothers and daughters. It must be pretty grim, especially when most know how ridiculous that is but cannot do anything about it. If they just got on they would take over the world. They are far more capable than us, just not very inventive. Not a dig.

john harris, lichfield, uk

The two worst bosses I have had are a childless woman in her late 40s and a married man with children. The former couldn't deal with the reality that I had children and she didn't whereas the latter was envious that I coped easily with raising my children whilst his stay at home wife didn't.

Mollie, uk,

I completely agree. The senior women I have worked with tell me that an issue is ‘very political’ - and then plunge into it with relish. They use ‘need to know’ as a management principle – but seem to love to keep secrets. They are good at snap judgments - but when challenged, resort to intimidation

Lucas Jacks, London,

The problem lies with the work ethos currently prevalent, which forces both men and women to make a choice between work & family. Though men may feel equally rotten about not being there at bathtime, noone excoriates them in quite the same way as they do women guilty of the same.

Emma, Brussels,

"I promoted many women in the corporate governance ladder. None of them expounded the victimhood of being female."

Yeah right they didn't.

Paddy, Dublin, Ireland

What a load of tosh.

One of my favourite expressions is "Give a job to a woman. When you come back the job is done. Give a job to a man. When you come back he's down the pub"

To pretend the Glass Ceiling does not exist is a joke.

John Tuohy, Whitchurch Hill, UK.

Not at all; women, in my experience, are far easier to work with than men. I've found very few women that have an 'ego problem', or a 'chip on their shoulder'. Women are in fact better team players (provided it's a mixed team) and are happy to share the credit. However, beware of an all women team!

Bharat Jashanmal, Manama, Bahrain

Excellent article India.

Most of the women I spoke to did not want Claire to win....and I wondered why.

Nur, Hayes, UK

In the clamber to be equal opportunity employees, weak-kneed male managers promote talentless yet ambitious female corporate climbers, who exacerbate mens sexist stereo-typed view of female executives, leaving the truly talented female workforce to decide they're better off at home with the kids!

Peter, Wellington, NZ

Absolutely on the button. Noel Coward got it right when he said, ' I don't mind women wanting to be men, but why can't they be gentlemen?' In a nutshell, I'd say. Sandra Ramini, London.

Sandra Ramini, London, England

Bravo! As a retired senior male executive, I promoted many women in the corporate governance ladder. None of them expounded the victimhood of being female. The just did the damn job well. I recognized their effort via promotions. Just like the Blacks, Hispanics, Native-Americans that worked with me

Tom Smith, Henderson, NV, USA

Allowing someone to supervise a job they can't do themselves is a formula for disaster. This is partly why women have problems in the workplace.

Andrew Milner, Karuizawa, Japan

the only decent candidate was raef, after that, it fell to pieces in my eyes

christopher osunsami, hastings, england

Why is there always the assumption that women don't or don't want to work as hard as men because they want to spend time with their kids? There are plenty of women that I work with that don't have kids. Why should they immediately be discounted because they're women (& MIGHT have kids someday?).

April, Seattle, WA, USA

Most of the participants would not get "set on" at the local supermarket? Shallow,egotistical..petty.Shrill and intemperate,[thats just the "men" ] First series fine,liked it,but now?God,who on earth selects candidates?are there no "real" Men and Women left other than the nasty and vain

david, Barnsley, England

Men don't stitch you up?!!!

Try working at a well known US Consultancy with more than 150,000 people - then say that!

People are individuals and everyone acts differently in different environments.

Fred Amburg, Longmeadow, Mass, USA

Men are competative and will try to beat down anyone to win. Women(not all) will let a man win, as if its his right, but never a woman,they conspire with men & women to keep her down. When will men & women learn that a successful woman is not a threat to their own self worth?

Audrey H-G, Prestwick, Scotland

Just a teaser question
Can a person, man or woman, who has no family life, no hobbies, no life outside work be an emotionally balanced and intellectually 'complete'?
For a woman, as for a man, a family may be demanding, but isn't a familyless person prone to unresponsible teen-like behaviour?

Rui, Lisbon, Portugal

My girlfriend hates working with other women - in her own words, "men don't stitch you up like women do". I hate working with anyone who allows emotional immaturity, bitchiness and hostility to cloud their careers, and mostly (admittedly not exclusively) that applies to females rather than males.

Neil S, Glasgow, Scotland

Nice to read an objective view on gender politics from a woman writer - not a first, though not far off it. But be careful, look what "The Sisters" had to say about Erin Pizzey.

Watch your back!

Ken Leyland, Liverpool, U.K.

My wife always hated working for other women.

She found that on the whole they were emotional, bullying, unreliable and catty.

Whilst I have worked with some realy great women I have always been struck how, when the going gets tough, women often turn on their colleagues. Men form a team.

Geoff M, Birmingham, England

It doesn't really matter who won, or who deserved to. All that mattered, and was ever going to decide the outcome, was Sir Alan's preference.

M Woolf , London, UK

Re: last comment, if we brought up our girls like our boys, they wouldn't have low self esteem. Every women suffers bitchiness from other women. Its depressing
Re: ridiculous hours - one can only demand equal treatment for equal work. Can't have cake and eat it.DAMN! Also how do we define succes

Audrey H-G, Prestwick, Scotland

Well, if you really want to waste your life chasing a £100,000 p/a job then why would you expect to get on with your colleagues, male or female.

If you go in for such selfish reasons then you desrve to be stabbed in the back, with an entire knife set from Claridges, several times, a week.

Ed, London,

On gender: the article sort of misses the point. A parent really ought to be bathing & putting the kids to bed if we want the next generation to grow up healthily and to look after us in our hard earned dotage. But who? Perhaps women would be happy to put in 16 hours a day knowing the men were home.

CT, London, UK

I've run a police operational control room with 70+ staff and the top 5 controllers included 3 women. Yet in the same building there was a department that was all female and it was gossip, moaning and emotional. What we need is a mix to get the best out of both.

Derek Smith, Brighton, UK

A well reasoned overview. Nicely done. The bra burners got our attention and had their say. They entered the workforce in droves and discovered that, while they may be capable of doing most any job a man can do, they might not want to. They just want to be asked.

Leo Muzzy, Newfield, United States

Try being the only male in the workplace and you will soon discover that women treat you the way women are treated in a largely male work environment. I have had such an experience and what I concluded is that both genders succumb to the tyranny of the majority and wreak vengeance on the minority.

Jim, New York City, USA

I totally agree that women are generally now treated equally in the workplace - if they aren't getting to the top it is because they value their quality of life and that shouldn't be seen as a bad thing - I am glad someone has finally pointed this out!

Emma, London, UK

Spot on India.

You've summed up in this article everything that is wrong with the modern work ethic where women are concerned.

Men have faults however I dread to think that those women on the show are typical of women in the workplace today.

Utterly disgracefull behaviour

Well done Lee

Shaun, Newcastle, Tyneside

Sexism at work: women making non-specific allegations about a man, refusing to cite specific examples. Repeating this then expecting a woman to rule over a woman complaining about man.

I'm telling you, both should be up before tribunals. One for not putting up, the other for process incompetence.

Rhys Jaggar, Leeds, UK

India Knight handily forgets - or perhaps didn't see - the episode when Lee merrily savaged one of the weakest, most vulnerable and least offensive candidates, an attack which resulted in a display of compassion from Raef, a million-carat gent.

bob gallagher, london,

My experience of working with women is that they are convinced they are hard done by and entitled to revenge on men. Very convenient if you simply like being unpleasant or see an advantage.

This was neatly summed up in the 1970s - when the worst began - by the phrase 'Men must be punished'.

Mike Newland, London, England

The apprentice is a sizable debacle, even by the yardsticks of absurdity which uderpins most modern television these days. It has naught to do with raw business acumen, and all to do with the choked cult of celebrity, show business and theatre. The real businessmen are the men who conjured this show

sadaat, London,

Everyone lies on their CV - yes about litle things like conversational french, reading poems and the like - not about attending Uni - are we now living in a society where we think a lie like that makes someone a "cheeky chappy"?
RD, Coatbridge

Richard, Coatbridge,

When I was an employer, I found male staff spent their time grandstanding, working out how 'underpaid' they were & palming off 'demeaning' jobs to female staff. The women multi-tasked, were quicker, responsive & put up with their lazy male colleagues while running homes & raising kids, too.

anne, bournemouth,

On working with men vs women debate, you really need both in any workplace to bring balance and a better synergy. As for which gender to work for, it doesn't matter, the requried attributes like 'inspiring' and 'proactive' aren't exclusive to any sex. Sweeping generalisations less and merit more!

Margaret, Dublin, Ireland

Wow - a great - and very insightful - article! Thank you Ms. Knight! I think one thing more should be said, though: if a male candidate for the job acted "as badly" (my words) as Ms. Young did, would it have mattered if that he was a man - would he have still been more likely to be chosen?

Bob, Moorpark, USA

I have often heard the same observation, almost always from women who don't have a chip on the shoulder, that they would rather be the only female in a work group of men than work in an office filled with other women.

And good point about making choices and sacrifices. Very good article.

gb, Austin, USA

Excellent article! I have female colleagues who say how difficult it is to work with other women, esp. those in more senior positions. The main complaint is that women dish out personal attacks that have nothing to do with the task at hand. They also take criticism personally and hold grudges.

Alistair, London,

I am so glad I chose to dump the career rat-race; give me my home, hubby and kids anytime.

wendy, belfast, northern ireland

In my opinion, the problem lies with greedy and exploiting attitude of the company rather than with one's personality... no one, woman or man, should be asked or expected to work long hours. We should all start giving more importance to other aspects of our lives and not only to money.... idealist?

gabriella, london, uk

A very disappointing article India. I have worked in male and female environments, and have come across good and bad bosses and colleagues of both sexes. However, the worst behaviour I have ever experienced was in a male dominated environment where female staff were bullied relentlessly.

MC, Birmingham, UK

A journalist with some good sense. Cohesive, comprehensible, accurate, and a thoroughly concise explanation of why women are so often negatively viewed by people like me, as hypocritical, double standard, 'do as we say, not as we do' individuals. Kudos for telling it like it is.

TheRockofAges, Tampa, USA/FL

Perhaps the difference is in how men learn to be competitive while playing within teams. And that women, to date, have had less opportunity and desire to do the same.

It might explain the competitiveness of men during the task but the ability to get over it following the task.

Paul, Toronto, Canada

On his CV 'mis-writing':

'I suppose I should have shared the actual situation more correctly'.

Nice. And how you get to finish first.

Peter , Ross on Wye, UK

I assume then, that if it was Fred Knight who wrote this piece, the Times would have had a million and one comments from women in a strop by now?

John, Malta,

Great article. Lee was by far the most worthy winner and not just because he did an excellent job but because he is such a great, humble & honest bloke.

I'm a woman (have been working for over 20 years) and have had women bosses and your comments are 100% correct.

Well done Lee & Sir Alan.

Kim, London,

A well balanced article. Thank goodness for India Knight.

Jez, London,

No one mentions it, but Lee did have good ideas as well, like on the advertising episode, he would happily spout ideas until something stuck instead of just criticising

adrian, London,

Here here, how refreshing to read some common sense!

Andrew, Wirral,

As you hold, men, too, are unhappy with working 16 hours a day. We are not blaming men for a subjective decision - their decision or "personal sacrifice", as you call it, inflicts on the entire work force, keeping the demands of employers perhaps too high.

Christine, Copenhagen, Denmark

Surely some blame must lie with the macho long hours culture?
Presenteeism is a major problem with British employers. There's no incentive to work smarter rather than harder, because there's the attitude that, if you're not there 12+ hours per day, you're not working hard enough.

Emma, London, United Kingdom

What CAN you say ?.
Well put..... that is all !

Nigel Thain, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire

I have worked under a variety of men and women. The men are always more worried about, "Is the job done and is it done correctly?" while the women are always worried about what people are wearing and a million little stupid things. Women can be catty and I would much rather work under a male boss.

Virginia, Los Angeles, USA

The entire conceit of the show is ridiculous." I am so great at business because my friends and family tell me so." I am a market trader in Amsterdam. Many of us make at least 100,000 pounds a year. Never having to work beyond 6 p.m. I say no thank you to monkey suit culture. Who is best off?

Lamont , Amsterdam, The Netherlands

80s mags showed women had to be surgeons etc - women are realising that many need talent and drive- hence the return of the dom. goddess. I'm man - if I dont put in the hours my wife, daughter and I have no home or money. simple as that. I dont work for fun . I have no choice.

andy, milnthorpe, cumbria

I am a woman and I totally agree!! Lee was better. He won more than Claire and performed better in the tasks. I can't understand the statement that says "Claire was robbed"!! No she was not.

Anne, raeding, uk

As a woman I can't agree more with you about how tough it is to work with other women. I have always said that women should be more like men at work; and learn to take things on the chin and not take things personally. Women can't expect to succeed whilst wanting to be treated with kid gloves.

MP, London, UK

Well put, as only a woman would be allowed to say, of course.

mike, Rennes, France