In honour of the International Women’s Day I wanted to write about the importance of female friendships, because they sometimes baffle me.
How can they sometimes seem so complicated?
- Why do some women find getting along with other women so challenging?
- And how can some find putting others down so satisfying?
Read also: Toxic Friendships – How to Break Up With a Friend?
There was a time when even I preferred the company of guys, rather than even trying to befriend girls. Guys just seemed easier to get along with. They didn’t judge, they could handle my rather rough sense of humor, and they weren’t jealous.
Yes, I said the J word. The word that is often used as an explanation to why so many women find female friendships so very hard. But nothing is ever that simple. We’re not born to be jealous of each other. As so many other traits, jealousy is a learned behaviour.
You can listen to this article as a podcast episode here:
5 Reasons Why Female Friendships Are SO Important
But let’s not get bogged down to negativity here, right people!? Instead, I want us to celebrate female friendships! I can happily say that these days I do not prefer men’s company to women’s. I never shun either, but most of my close friends are women.
And that’s the magic word here: close friends. All friendships are valuable. But when you’re lucky enough to click with someone on a level where no subject is a taboo, who you can trust always, and who you love beyond anything, congratulations. You’ve got something which value cannot be measured in any currency because it goes beyond such things.
Some men like to make fun of this day and pretend that we’re all equal and saying it suppresses men. Those men do not deserve our attention or concern. They are so alienated from life as a whole that we cannot help them.
Men and women are not equal. Nowhere on this planet are men and women equal. And as long as this situation prevails, we will need the International Women’s Day! If you feel it’s not for you, then remember all the other women all around the world. 8th of March is for them and for us! ♥
Read also: Emotional Intimacy – 5 Ways to Reconnect With Loved Ones
1. Female Friendships Reduce Stress Levels
Let’s start with a rather obvious one: we women are graced with better emotional capabilities than the opposite sex. We are better able to recognize different emotions. We are also better able to express these emotions and live with them.
The extremely important factor here is our ability to express: our ability to feel and talk about our feelings. You all know what I mean, right? The feeling when you’re upset and you just need to talk to someone about it!
That’s when you call your girlfriend(s), gather together with them, perhaps equipped with a bottle of wine, and you let it all out. You tell them your deepest fears, your biggest worries and your dearest dreams. And they listen and support you.
There’s nothing that reduces stress levels like being able to talk, and being listened to.
More on the topic: How to Make Friends As an Adult – 8 Tips
2. Real Friends Boost Each Other
Women tend to be very loyal. Not all of them, obviously, but a great majority of us. We put a lot of trust in people we love and value most. And we expect the same loyalty to be reciprocated. Loyal relationships make us feel stable, which also helps with our self-esteem.
It’s easier to pay a compliment to another woman when you feel it takes nothing away from you. And when you can count on their honesty and ability to pay one back when it’s needed. A girlfriend’s positive comment on our looks or actions boosts our confidence more than a man’s compliment. This is simply because with women we know that the compliment is given without an alternative agenda.
3. There Is No-One You Can Trust More
Do you trust your partner? Of course you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be with them, right? But for a lot of us trust between our partner versus trust between us and our closest girlfriends is not comparable.
Your boyfriend will tell you you look beautiful in that dress because they know that’s what you wanna hear (yes, I know, not all boyfriends!). Whereas you can be damned sure that your girlfriends will tell you honestly if a dress doesn’t do you any favours.
On a more serious note, if that boyfriend then fails you, you can always rely on the fact that you’re not alone. Your friends are there for you, they will hold you up and they will support you. No matter what size the mountain you have to climb, with a safety net like your girlfriends you’ll be just fine!
4. Female Friendships Are Stronger
On a similar topic, when you’ve got yourself a little ‘gals’ army’ there is no situation, no fight, no dating scam big enough that couldn’t be handled. You’ve got the ultimate support system to which you can turn about any matter.
Whether it’s positive or negative, it don’t matter. You girlfriends will want to hear about it and celebrate/lament it with you. When you’ve really fucked up and you’re embarrassed beyond any measure, you can count on them to not judge you or laugh at you. There is no element of fear in female friendships.
Read also: Abortion is NOT Men’s Business – 4 Simple Reasons Why
5. Female Solidarity Is What Will Save the World
I know there are couple men who will read this and snigger. And they can fuck right off because they will eventually learn.
Because there’s no denying that if women ruled the world, it would be a lot kinder, a lot calmer, and a lot nicer a place to live in. Women see value in other things than power and money. Those are unsustainable values, that have extremely destructive consequences when misused. We see it everywhere in the world today:
- Far-right movements rising around the world, most useless wars raging all over the place,
- incels blaming and hating women for their own inability to form meaningful relationships,
- and mental illnesses being amped up by everything around us telling us we’re never good enough. All for the sake of money and power.
At the end of the day all of us humans are exactly the same. We all look for happiness, we all need food to stay alive, and we all need a community where we feel safe and accepted. I’m gonna risk upsetting people here and say that a handful of women are better able to provide all of this than all men put together.
It all comes down to empathy. Women are intuitive, which means we are better able to read emotions. And because we are also able to see things from others’ point of view, we are great communicators and listeners.
THIS creates trust, feeling of safety and community. And that’s the strongest base for any relationship, ideology, or a state. A base most men find very hard to build.
Female Friendships – Conclusion
I’m aware that this may come across as me bashing off men. But that is absolutely NOT my point. I’ve been fortunate enough to grow up surrounded by extremely intelligent men (both emotionally and practically). I respect them and I love them. But I do also recognize our differences, and the fact the men I grew up with are a minority in the world.
And here’s why I wanted to point this out: We need to raise better men. We need to raise men who are aware of their emotions. We need to raise men who respect their and others’ emotions. Only then can they control their emotions and treat themselves, as well as us, better.
We women are “braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” (- A.A. Milne) And we need to accept our evident superiority in certain matters, and use it for the greater good. So much is in our hands as mothers, sisters, aunts and daughters. And together we are stronger than anything on this planet.
Happy International Women’s Day ♥
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