I’ve been meaning to write about female friendship for a while now, but I haven’t been quite sure how to display it in a way that captured my feelings the right way. When I wrote about female bullying, the words came from a place of humiliation and anger, yet I was able to reflect on it with the healing and maturation that has come with time and contemplation. But my thoughts and emotions on my female friendships come from a softer and more vulnerable part of myself. My female friendships have raised me to emotional peaks and set me at the bottoms of emotional trenches worse than a breakup. But most of all, they have supported me and raised my confidence while keeping me humble and grounded.
I don’t think I fully understood the role my friendships with other women played in my life until this past sorority recruitment. A quick summary for those who haven’t gone through the process: it consists of hours upon hours of arts and crafts, decorating, and making conversation with girls you’ve never met and then deciding if they’d be a good potential fit as lifelong members of your organization. If you’re me, it also involves spending hours in your house’s basement crafting with girls you’ve only ever made small talk with at chapter meetings, breaking down from becoming so socially overwhelmed talking to new people, and feeling achy from standing for hours on end. I started to come to my understanding of my bonds with other women on the final night of recruitment, the night where each sorority welcomes their new members into their chapter for the first time. In the midst of the chanting, glitter, and trying to not get whacked with big wooden greek letters, I was overwhelmed with emotions.
On that night a year ago, I had been welcomed into my own chapter. After feeling like I had been judged inside and out by hundreds of women, I was relieved to be welcomed into a group, yet terrified of what was to come. As the fear of the unknown crept back up on me in the present, I realized how I had been eager yet tentative about forming more friendships with other women. My bonds with other women have been so special to me, but have taken so much effort and understanding to achieve. To become acquainted with other women on a surface level is not so difficult, but to truly form a close, long-lasting bond takes sensitivity and openness not easily given or earned.
While I invest love and sensitivity into my close friendships with women, I appreciate how we can relate to one another and work together even when we only know each other as acquaintances. Small gestures like fixing a tag on the back of a shirt or helping fix hair and makeup are little morale boosters that make me feel a little better when I’m in a rush or am having a bad day. Even feeling like I can relate to women I don’t know well on more serious topics like health, relationships, and discrimination makes me feel less alone in the world; knowing there are others that walk in step with me even if I don’t know them personally.
A piece of advice I’d like to impart to other women about their friendships is something I have to remind myself constantly: women are not perfect. When I spend my free time doing things such as writing feminist op-eds or reading books and articles about sexism and discrimination, it can be jarring to go into the real world and realize that theory and statistics don’t always match up with lived experience. Sometimes your female friends will do or say something problematic, or defend men you see as antagonistic, or might straight up just be mean or hurtful in some cases. When you feel as if you spend your time advocating for better treatment for yourself and other women, it can hurt when you feel like the camaraderie and cooperation to do and be better just isn’t there. To reconcile the goals for a better future for women and the reality of us all being flawed individuals, I feel like it’s important to remember to love and be loved in friendships, but not to hold other women to such a high standard that we end up pushing each other away since our bonds are our greatest strength.
Be First to Comment