chabot@amber.DEC (Lisa Chabot) (05/25/84)
This is an answer to a letter from Anita with the following heading: > Path: decwrl!decvax!harpo!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!hogpc!houxe!drutx!drux3!anita > Subject: friendships among women > Posted: Fri May 18 09:34:18 1984 > I've been quite aware since I was a teenager that the bonds of female > friendship in American society are not very strong. This has never been my impression! Never! I've always thought bonds between women friends to be much stronger than men friends. In my personal experience, I have one especially strong friendship which began my freshman year in high school, and several good ones with women I met in college. Unfortunately, I'm here in Massachusetts, and they're out West, but we write and we call and visit when we can (although the visits are often tagged on to family trips at Christmas or business trips). I'm so incredibly lucky, I feel--not that I ever thought I'm better off friend-wise than anybody else, it's just that making and keeping these good friends was never anything expected. And although I don't hear from my friends so often or I don't write to them so often, this doesn't matter, because we can pick up again--the friendship doesn't fade. One friend is married and has a 3-year old, one is going to get married, one has had the same steady for years and another has a new steady--you know, sometimes you just want to spend a little more time with your husband or boyfriend, but that should always be okay with your friends-- and it certainly shouldn't prevent any new friendships from forming. Of my closest friends, I'll admit I met most of them before they got steady with their current man or got married, but not all; and anyway, I met some while I was going through a somewhat devastating, long-term, engulfing (and long over, thank heavens) relationship. None of my friends' men object to them having me as a friend--these women have great taste and their guys are great: they're not overbearing or authoritarian, they're partners, and I think they're pretty good friends to have, too. > The topic has been discussed quite a bit in the media, etc., ... Really? Where? I'm curious. Any references? Here's a counter reference. Unfortunately, it's one of those memorable MS articles that I can place no better than mid-70's. But it was written about a man about how the bonds between his men friends were failing, because the bonds couldn't hold up under the stress of competition-- what I mean is one friend might be successful in business, and the others would grow distant, be unable to talk with him, as if they felt inadequate compared with his success. The only thing I can think of in the media is perhaps the depiction of women's relationships in popular drama. I see alot of things I don't like such as women depicted as bitchy and venomous and backstabbing--I've had very little experience with this and I've seen little of it (and I don't THINK I'm Pollyanna); I find it offensive to see so many evil women depicted, or just plain stupid women: what will little girls think? that this is their fate? Sometimes I get the feeling that the message that it's all Eve's fault we're not living in the Garden still is being painted in red letters everywhere we look. And then, think, most writers and producers and directors of movies and tv are men, and they may wish to celebrate male friendship, their own friendships; hence there are many depictions of strong friendships between men and very few of between women. > This seems to preclude any possiblity of having any strong bond to anyone > but their husbands (or boyfriends). Bleah! I don't know what to think about this statement. The "bleah" is for what an flat life this seems to me. Some people seem wary of making friends of the same sex, for fear they'll get labelled "gay" (good grief!), and this fear comes out very strong if approached by the other person first (because they're afraid the other person is gay). But I've seen some of these kind of people become more comfortable with time. Others who are in steady relationships seem to want to spend all their time with their other half--as if the euphemism is literally true; but this only precludes friendship if they want to be solitary with their other half. [It never seems uncomfortable to me to go out as a threesome, whether I'm the one in the couple or not, unless the couple gets into necking (but most in my social circles have more class than that).] "Professional" at work doesn't mean not "medieval" at home. Just because a woman holds a white-collar job doesn't mean when she goes home she isn't married to a house, and follows her master's wishes and tastes. So it is possible that some of the women you'll meet cannot make friends with you more than those of coffee breaks. But, anyway, I've got many close women friends, and most of them are due a letter, so I think I'll go now. :-) Lisa Chabot UUCP: ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot ARPA: ...chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA USFail: DEC, MR03-1/K20, 2 Iron Way, Marlborough, MA 01752 shadow: ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-avalon!chabot
martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo) (05/28/84)
I hope this article will not inspire anything like Martillo's Rape Cure. When Lisa Chabot replied to Anita's article, we learned nothing about Anita's ethnic background. I suspect in Islamic (and to a lesser extent) traditional Jewish societies friendship between women are much stronger. Men's world and women's world do not intersect as much. Therefore, if a person has a close friend he is likely to be of the same sex. Westerner's often have the impression that in patriarchal, polygynous, endogamous societies, women lead lives of unending exploitation. Germaine Greer has recently written a book taking the opposite opinion somewhat naively to the extreme. However even in positions which Western women would find intolerable, oriental women are often able to work together. My great-uncle Rahamim hated the telephone because in Libya his two wives had separate apartments and rarely spoke. If he was having a fight with one because she wanted something, he would just stay with the other until the first gave in. In Italy the first wife would call up to the second and then they would both nudge my great-uncle until he gave in.
carson@homxa.UUCP (P.CARSTENSEN) (05/30/84)
Just a couple points on woman friends: (1) I think that I am more likely to start a casual conversation on a plane (for example) with a man than with a woman (2) I have had long periods when all my friends were men and equally long periods when all my friends were women--not sure if this was due to a run of luck or something about how I was defining myself (3) My friend Elaine studies "networks of social support" and I seem to remember her saying that women tend to have stronger and richer networks (4) A couple years ago, the Detroit Free Press had an article in which a number of local celebrities told who was their best friend. It was interesting because some women had male best friends, but no men gave a woman as his best friend. (I think this expresses some power perceptions, but I'm not sure.) (5) The bottom line is that the two people I'd tell something to first are my mother and my friend Charlotte, who is in NC... Patricia Carstensen