By PEGGY KLAUS

While women have come a long way in removing workplace barriers, one of the last remaining obstacles is how they treat one another. Instead of helping to build one another’s careers, they sometimes derail them - for example, by limiting access to important meetings and committees; withholding information, assignments and promotions; or blocking the way to mentors and higher-ups.


And if you are a woman and happen to have a female co-worker who is a bully, watch out. A recent study by the Workplace Bullying Institute examining office behaviors - like verbal abuse, job sabotage, misuse of authority and destroying of relationships - found that female bullies aim at other women more than 70 percent of the time. Bullies who are men, by contrast, tend to be equalopportunity tormentors when it comes to the gender of their target.


Despite all the money spent annually on women’s leadership conferences and professional development programs, one would be hard-pressed to find a workshop on women mistreating one another at work.Teaching career skills is not enough if women ignore one of the most important reasons for holding these events in the first place: learning to value one another so they can all get ahead.


There are plenty of theories on why women undermine one another at work. Probably the most popular one is the scarcity excuse - the idea that there are too few spots at the top, so women at more senior levels are unwilling to assist female colleagues who could potentially replace them.


Another explanation is what may be called the“D.I.Y. Bootstrap Theory,”which goes like this:“If I had to pull myself up by the bootstraps to get ahead with no one to help me, why should I help you- Do it yourself!”


Some people argue that women aren’t intentionally undermining one another; rather, they don’t want to be accused of showing favoritism toward other women. Others contend that women mistreat one another because of hyperemotionality, leading them to become overly invested in insignificant nuances and causing them to hold grudges.


Some people assert that while women compete quite ably on the sports field and in the classroom, they haven’t learned how to compete in a healthy way at the office. For example, men often handle their feelings of envy and jealousy with humor and a left-handed compliment:“I’m going to whip your butt on our sales goals this month.”This kind of banter is not as socially acceptable for women.


Expecting women to be universally supportive of one another or to give preferential treatment to any female is an equally unworkable view. If the world really wants to clear one of the last remaining hurdles to gender parity and career success, let’s start treating one another not worse or better, but simply as well as we already treat the guys - or better yet, the way we want our nieces, daughters, granddaughters and sisters to be treated.