The Sisterhood Paradox: Why women don’t always support other women at work

I grew up in Kenya during the fight for democracy, in a world where safety meant high walls, barbed wire, and locked gates. Inside those compounds, women carved out spaces of softness. Every morning at 10am, they gathered to cook, share wisdom, and quietly strategise about surviving political instability, financial uncertainty, and the everyday grind of being a woman in a system not built for us.

It was noisy, ordinary, and sacred all at once. Those circles raised me and taught me that womanhood meant community, not competition. In that world, another woman’s success meant safety for all of us. The circle only worked if everyone was held.

Years later, when education and ambition carried me into corporate boardrooms, I expected to find echoes of that sisterhood. Instead, I discovered the opposite: women cutting each other down, withholding information, or competing ruthlessly for limited opportunities.

This is the sisterhood paradox: we talk about women supporting women, but under pressure, solidarity can fracture.

Scarcity means the sisterhood suffers

The first wave of women entering male-dominated workplaces were battling structures not designed for them. They fought for every role, absorbed every blow, and internalised a brutal message: there is only room for one of you.

Some learned to survive by adopting the behaviours that harmed them, controlling, undermining, or pulling the ladder up behind them.

The second wave entered during the era of diversity targets. Organisations proudly reported progress, but the reality was often a handful of seats at leadership tables, with women, especially women of colour, pitted against one another for the same tiny slice of opportunity.

It’s no surprise that scarcity thinking shows up. When there are so few seats, every promotion feels zero-sum.

I wish I could say that women always responded with grace, but many didn’t. I’ve been undermined publicly, shouted at, excluded from meetings, and pushed under buses by women I trusted. It hurt more deeply precisely because it came from women.

The system rewards conformity, not authenticity

Women are told to ‘lean in’ and perform confidence, while being punished for showing emotion, asking questions, or leading differently.

For women of colour, the stakes are even higher: we are often visible enough to be judged, invisible enough to be excluded.

I learned early to dull my edges, hide parts of my identity, and over-prepare for everything. Others learned to play the game a different way: dominate early, protect your turf, defend at all costs.

This isn’t a personality flaw. It’s a survival strategy. But it makes sisterhood hard.

Something is shifting

Today, more women are entering senior roles than ever before. The numbers are not equal, but they are rising, and that matters. Because every time a woman enters a room of power, she shifts its centre of gravity.

This is where my own journey has brought me: into rooms I used to feel grateful just to enter. I no longer want to be the exception. I want to be the beginning of a pattern.

I don’t just build ladders anymore, I cast nets. I mentor and sponsor women, especially women of colour and younger women, not by telling them who to be, but by shaping environments where they can lead differently.

Sometimes that means advocating for them in rooms they don’t know exist yet. Sometimes it means challenging biased assumptions. Sometimes it means simply reminding them: you are not the problem; the system is.

We all feel jealousy and fear

I’d love to say I never feel threatened by another woman’s success, but that wouldn’t be honest. I still feel the sting of comparison, insecurity, and self-doubt.

The difference now is the story I tell myself. Instead of asking, “Why her and not me?”, I ask, “What can I learn from her, and how do we both win?”

This is not about perfection. It’s about intention.

What women can do differently

We don’t need corporate slogans about sisterhood. We need practices that make solidarity real

Here’s what women can do differently:

• Share knowledge freely, especially with people newer or different to you.
  
• Sponsor women publicly, not just privately encourage them.
  
• Name exclusion and bias when you see it, even when it’s uncomfortable.
  
• Celebrate each other’s wins without minimising your own.
  
• Drop the myth of exceptionalism, one woman’s success is not evidence that the system is fixed.

Sisterhood is not a personality trait; it’s a strategy. A collective one.

Reclaiming the circle

The little girl in the Kenyan courtyard is still inside me. She remembers the sound of women laughing over chopping boards, burdens feeling lighter when shared.

Today, my work is to recreate that circle in boardrooms, leadership programs, and workplaces, to refuse to let systems manipulate us into turning against each other.

I want women to feel both seen and supported. Strong and soft. Ambitious without apology. We don’t have to agree on everything. We just have to refuse to compete for scraps. We’ve spent decades fighting for entry, but entry isn’t the goal. Transformation is.

It’s about creating a workplace where women don’t just survive, but shape culture. Where the rules aren’t simply bent, but rewritten. Where sisterhood isn’t a hashtag, but a practice.

The walls and barbed wire look different now, but the solution is the same: women standing together, refusing scarcity, and choosing to turn gated compounds into circles of belonging.