Aggressive Women -- Workable in IT?

Probably the best project manager I ever worked with was a woman who had graduated from MIT. She was about six-foot, broad shoulders, and was on the rowing team in college. She wasn't an amazon by any means, but she did have an impressive appearance. And she used it to her advantage.
I remember coming in to take over her team. She explained that since we actually knew what we were doing, and the client didn't, it was our job to structure the project so that the client would be happy in the end, even if the client wasn't smart enough to know how to do that themselves. This was a tricky propisition, but she took it in stride -- she just marched in, asked how things were going, and proceeded to tell the client what we would be doing. She was wildly successful, mainly because she had the thing that so many of us consultants lack: credibility.
But she was forceful, if polite. And the word "bitchy" never crossed anyone's mind. I asked her once how we could keep the client informed without them making decisions that might hurt their cause -- so many times when you tell people a problem, they want to give you a solution. She said, "Just give it to them straight up, with as much of the technical details you can muster. Don't ask for a decision, give them a recommendation, at some point you will see their eyes glaze over, and then you know that you're at the end of the conversation."
I miss her -- she was very detail-oriented, while I've always been a "big picture" guy. I remember her showing me a spreadsheet that she kept her "to-do" list on. It had a dozen pages! But we both knew enough to keep out of the other's way, and the customer liked each of us as PM. She was a hoot to work with.
Contrast that to another manager I had. She was always "unloading" on me and the other consultants. Not a day went by without her telling us what a hard job she had, no one appreciated her work, and she was sick of it. She was always very negative. In addition, she had a "better than you" attitude. I remember her telling one consultant that he couldn't park in the close-by lot anymore since he was so new, that he would have to walk a quarter-mile to work. He just smiled, and from then on started billing the moment he got out of his car.
She and I had a couple of run-ins as well, with her telling me at one point that I had to be available 24-7 for the foreseeable future. She never understood anything about the technology we were working on -- she had got out of technical work many years ago and liked it that way. Since she had a friend that wanted my job, I understood the writing was on the wall. She kept asking for silly things, like staying over to work on a project that had a far-away deadline and nobody cared about, until I finally gave her my notice. I liked her and the job pretty well, but she was just poorly equipped to handle the position she was in. I guess when a guy is like that, we call him an "idiot" or worse. The female name is bitch. I never called her that, but I could understand why some would.
Whatever happened to my aggressive MIT friend? She met a nice guy. They went out a couple times and then she announced to him that they "would be getting married" soon. They did, and last I heard they were very happy. I just hope he's good at following directions!