Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun phrase 252.. The noun phrase today is queen bee.
Okay. If somebody wants a screenshot do it right now. Let's get right into it. The main meaning
of queen bee. Of course is the single fertile bee in a hive. Because there's usually just one
bee that is actually reproducing at a time and she reproduces a lot too. Now the second meaning is
probably the one we will concentrate on more for this video because most people probably already
know the first meaning. And of course this second meaning comes from the idea of the first meaning
as well. All right. So what is the second meaning here. A woman in a position of authority who has
a controlling position in a particular group, especially in a company or some organization.
The term could be neutral to simply suggest one is the main woman in charge, but is more
often used in a negative way to mean she is an ambitious leader who is more often tougher
on female employees. Okay. This is a little strange because I've done articles you know,
I've covered in class where I've had students and it for whatever reason it came up ... it came up
like with for women , would they prefer a male boss or a female boss and I was really surprised
with the answers that the far majority of women said they preferred a male boss to a female boss.
Most of them gave the answers because the woman she thought the woman boss was always too picky,
too picky about small details and things like that. Sometimes too emotional too.
These are probably some of the reasons they said. But I was really surprised that you know,
it was overwhelmingly you know 80 to 90 percent of women all said that they preferred men bosses
and it's really kind of surprised me. I don't know if it's related to this idea at all,
but just from my own experience of teaching classes where this came up it always seemed
to be that way. The other ones didn't necessarily say that they preferred a woman they just thought
said you know, well it didn't matter. You know, case-by-case basis. For myself you know,
in the past I've had male and female bosses and i feel kind of that way. That you know
it depends on who it is. It depends on the boss. Obviously some women bosses are better.
Some men bosses are better or worse or vice versa. Okay. Let's continue. Let's go on.
All right. There's even something referred to as queen, queen bee syndrome. So this
does exist. You know, they talk about this. In which female leaders may consider younger
female underlings or people who are below them as competitors. And may sometimes , and sometimes may
refuse to advance them preferring a male. So they might think of them as their competition or they
tend to be tougher on them. So I don't know let me know if this is true ? If you're a female and
you ever had a female boss does it matter ? What was your experience ? Did you think that
female bosses are better or not better ? Or is it a case-by-case basis ? Or you know did you
agree with maybe what some of the other women said that from my class ? Do you prefer a male boss or
does it does it matter ? What was your experience like ? Let me know.
All right. Let's continue. Let's continue. All right. There's also a queen bee use in schools.
We see this in a lot of those teenage movies, typically someone who is like a school princess.
You know very beautiful. She probably gets another group of girls that kind of follow her and they're
all kind of princesses. Often being described as being beautiful, charismatic you know,
but also manipulative. You know using people. Maybe putting people down. Thinking that they
are better than others. Something like that. Perhaps someone who is a head cheerleader or
queen of the ball. Now again, when I was in university I knew a few cheerleaders. I
didn't find him to be particularly this way . You know and I'm sure there's a lot of cheerleaders.
You know, don't take offense. They you know may not be this way at all. They may be very nice.
Just like this very there's some very nice women bosses too. Or, or queen of the ball. You know,
but if we ought to believe some of those teenage movies though. They, they often do have characters
like that. All right. Let's continue. And we have a four examples just to show how we
would use it here. Here's the first one. Jenny thinks she is the queen bee around the office.
Maybe , maybe she's the head woman around the office. I don't know if she's above all
the other employees too , but maybe she she acts like it. She behaves like it.
Some commentators have referred to Nancy Pelosi as the queen bee of congress. Well I've heard that
too. Yeah she's been around sometimes when the democrats are in charge of congress. You know,
she'll usually be the one that's the head of the house of representatives. All right number three.
She is the queen bee of the cheerleading team. Okay maybe and number four. Well this goes back to
the original. The actual real bee, A queen bee can lay up to 1 500 eggs per day. So she's very busy.
You know, I mean I think there's a lot of women females that are glad that they
maybe they're not a queen bee. I don't know if they'd want to do that much work. But
anyway, this is , this is the way we might hear it used. Okay. I hope you got it. I hope it was
clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.