less confrontational and competitive in the job market in order to be equitable to women

Women are plenty confrontational and competitive. It's just never direct.

Someone at work they don't like? Poison the [social] well against them and cut them off.

Someone they want to get ahead of? See the above.

Poison is described as a woman's weapon because it's indirect but it doesn't have to be literal, physical poison. Rumours and lies can be just as damaging [if not at times moreso] to someone because of how impossible such things can be to deal with, even more so the longer things go on and the more people end up influenced by it.