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A woman trying to claw her way to the top will generally have to work three times as hard as a man, and be three times as ruthless to boot.

I didn't just fall off the turnip truck. I've been working in industries dominated by women (libraries, public education) and industries dominated by men (newspapers, engineering). I've been around.

IMO, women are their own worst enemies. As I have said before, and it may seem trite, but "The Apprentice" is a very good show. Not all jobs follow this pattern, but mine does, and I rather suspect advertising does:

Bring a group together, find a vision of where you need to go, motivate the team, coordinate the efforts, achieve some final results, present the results to the customer.

They do that once a week on the Apprentice. I do it constantly. On the show, and in my work experience, the most harmful person in the group is (generally) the person who is most obviously trying to "claw her way to the top", the person is who flagrantly "three times as ruthless" as anyone else on the team, the person who is completely self-absorbed and absolutely convinced that they work "three times as hard" as anyone else, in short, the one person who is totally disruptive to the team effort, is a woman 90% of the time.

As I said in post #12, my first post on this thread, I have worked with outstanding women -- women who got to the top, and deserved to get to the top. But I have seem many, many women who were their own worst enemeies. And those women usually shout the loudest about how they are treated unfairly when they don't rise to the top.

If you haven't worked in the creative field, you flat-out don't know what you're talking about. Really. It's a whole different culture, with a whole different set of expectations. In other fields, I would agree with you 100% about some women being their own worst enemies. In creative, life's different.

in short, the one person who is totally disruptive to the team effort, is a woman 90% of the time.

Sheesh. You're that guy who promotes the hungover fratboy every time over the woman who comes in early, stays late and actually gets the work done. That's because the hungover fratboy doesn't give a sh!t about outcomes, and therefore never rocks the boat.

IMO, women are their own worst enemies.

In some respects, you are right there. Sometimes women do not help each other. And, too often women who do outstanding work do not understand the value of promoting themselves in their profession. They bristle at the suggetion that they, for example, have a WEB SITE, or participate in anything ONLINE. These kind of women are like death knells for other women who are trying to make it or learn.