A new study shows that while attractive women do tend to get better jobs overall than their less attractive counterparts, when it comes to management positions in stereotypically male white-collar jobs (research, finance, engineering, etc.), “uglier” women tend to have the advantage. The study also shows that attractive women also have less success finding employment in blue-collar work (law enforcement, truck driving, etc.). The most unsurprising finding is the study is that attractiveness is always a positive for men …

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Look, I think Paul Thompson is a provocateur. I think, by writing a column alleging that women shouldn’t be in leadership roles because they are emotional, grudge-holding cat-fighters, he’s just asking bitches like me to get our diatribes on.

What’s funny is that the first boss I think of who embodies all of those characteristics is none other than XY-chromosome card-carrying Dunder-Mifflin regional manager, Michael Scott, of The Office.

Of course Thompson’s wrong. So wrong, in fact, his piece doesn’t even merit a point-by-point rebuttal.  I only bring it up in the first place because I recently experienced a period of approximately 24 hours where I thought he might be right. I only wish I could scan in the several pages of my journal chronicling my “WTF-AM-I-SEXIST?” breakdown.

I spent last week at a writing course abroad under the leadership of a woman best described as a “stiff, old broad.” She was in charge. She was fiercely opinionated. She didn’t forget it if you were late. She took no prisoners. She wasn’t winning any friends. That wasn’t what she was there to do, after all, but I found myself resisting her orders literary guidance nevertheless. “Couldn’t she try catching flies with honey?” I thought, then immediately corrected myself: “Well a man in the same situation wouldn’t have to.” If I were in her place, I probably wouldn’t either. And that’s when it hit me: This woman and I are totally going to be BFF by the end of the week, because we’re the same. I’m going to work my ass off for her, and I’m going to like it.

I’m not a control group for this. 1) I’m not a group, and 2) I’ve only had one male boss. I can only speak from my own experience, and my experience with female bosses/leaders has not been a narrative of cat-fighting and grudge-holding. Instead, it’s been a narrative of me putting more work than ever into whatever product I happen to be working on, and not folding like a house of cards when I think I’m right. Time after time, I’ve earned the respect of my strong female employers and teachers this way, and our relationships are profound and beneficial long after I move on the next thing. Plus! There’s not that icky-sex thing that gets tangled up — even vaguely — in the male boss/female subordinate dynamic.

So cheers to my unflinchingly powerful lady bosses, past, present, and future: You bring out my best.