I have worked in retail management for over 20 years. I am female, age 42. And I can unequivocally say that with very rare exceptions, most problem customers that lie and degrade workers are female - AND most problem managers/bosses are, too. In my experience, this rule has held true over every single job experience (6 different companies).
While I recognize it is a one-rat study, the problem with females almost always appears to boil down to one simple thing - women "feel" more than they "think" (on average). Their complaints, as customers, almost without exception, revolve around appearance and feelings and very rarely have any substantial evidence. For example, "This person was rude to me." very rarely follows up with any specific rude behavior, rather they either lie outright (as evidenced by witnesses) or they say things like "She made me feel bad." or "She had a mean look on her face." or my favorite "She took a deep breath while talking to me." They then escalate the situation themselves by throwing insults at the employee who most often is just trying to do their job properly.
I can count on one hand with fingers to spare the number of VALID customer complaints given out by a female. Men, on the other hand, are around 50/50 regarding validity. Men also are a tiny percentage of overall complaints in a retail setting - close to 1% (My retail management jobs have been primarily in large grocery stores or large big box specialty stores)
As far as female managers, the vast majority are miserable to work for IF YOU ARE A FEMALE. If you are a male underling, they are often pushovers unless you actively disagree or disobey them. They want their employees to like them, but also to obey them. Any indication that an employee has a different opinion or doesn't want to socialize, is generally met with hostility cloaked as "being the manager," regardless of the underling's gender. They will also be less likely to listen to reason, or examine evidence and change their mind based on what evidence exists. Instead, they tend to go by their "feelings" much more often than male managers.
Again, THIS IS ONLY MY OWN EXPERIENCE. It is in no way meant to blanket all females with the negative impressions. I try very hard to leave my own feelings out of any dealings with employees, and will go out of my way to try to make each employee as successful as possible while still keeping the business flowing.
And as a customer, I simply practice due diligence - I research my purchases and when I take a chance, I accept that risk. The few times in life I have had to make a complaint (never about an employee, always a product or service), I stick to the facts, communicate what I expect, and I make it very clear to whomever I am speaking to that it is not their fault, personally.
As a disclaimer, I realize men can be like this as well. My point is only that in my 20 years of retail management experience, women are the most awful gender by an overwhelming majority both as complaining customers and horrible managers.