“Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses,” said Michelle Obama, “swapped back and forth and over again.”
In my almost 21 years of life, I can confidently say that my female friendships are the most important relationships in my life, other than my relationships with my family members. My most cherished female friendships are unlike anything else. But why are they so different from other relationships? Well, anyone who has ever experienced or witnessed female friendships can attest to their complexity.
From an outside perspective, female friendships may seem competitive, toxic or full of drama. While this can be true in certain cases, Roxanne Gay explains in “Bad Feminist” that we should abandon this cultural myth as it “is like heels and purses—pretty but designed to SLOW women down.” Sure, there can be more competition in relationships between two women, but this can be attributed to the intensity of these relationships.
Female friendships tend to be more emotionally intimate than male friendships or female-male friendships. When navigating through life, women are much more willing to share the details of their lives with their female friends. This kind of emotional intimacy provides a safe space and system of support for women, while also adding another level of intensity and complexity to the relationship. This trust and confidence in another person is what causes friendship fallouts to be so devastating. I know many of my female friends, as well as myself, have experienced fallouts with friends that hurt just as much as a breakup. This is because of the intimate and emotional bond that is formed between two women who become close friends.
There is also something to be said about how women interact with female strangers. We are always looking out for other women, even if we don’t know each other. Sharing lip gloss in the bar bathroom, braiding each other’s hair, locking eyes while doing each other’s makeup, sharing clothes, laughing until you can’t breathe—these are all such simple yet intimate things that distinguish female friendships from other kinds of relationships. It is so important for women to have healthy, stable friendships with other women. Appreciating these relationships are at the core of womanhood.
Honestly, my female friendships in which there is no animosity, no jealousy, instead just pure love and support of one another, are unmatched. These really are my most cherished relationships because they are such a unique kind of love. I can confidently say that I would not be where I am today without all of my female friendships, past and present, and they have shaped me into who I am. True friends aggressively believe in each other, want each other to succeed and think the other deserves the world. When it comes down to it, I believe women are just really good at being friends. As novelist Alice Adams once said, “I think women know how to be friends. That’s what saves our lives.”