the dark side of female friendship : /

The Twisted Sisterhood!

You also describe a hot mess of antagonism on the mommy front. Why do you think that is?

This phrase is awful enough when people shoehorn it into their everyday speech, but it becomes a million times worse when someone uses it in any sort of "serious" journalistic way.

I like that she did a survey to pretend it was scientific.

do people actually use the word "mommyhood"?

tl; dr; cbf

'ledge party' lol

Most girls I have been friends with have, at some point, said something like, "I don't get along with other women." I understood the feeling they were expressing, but it did not make sense because this sentence was usually said to one or more women who were their very close friends.

this just goes to show that women should be allowed to hang out in groups w/o male supervision

Most girls I have been friends with have, at some point, said something like, "I don't get along with other women." I understood the feeling they were expressing, but it did not make sense because this sentence was usually said to one or more women who were their very close friends.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

i've never felt that "i don't get along with other men" nor in my 40+ years ever known a man to voice a similar sentiment. i've never felt that my gender was not to be trusted with regard to my deepest feelings, or that guys in general don't have my back. this despite lots of competition, aggression, and even violent conflict with other men.

yet i've often heard women say this or other, similar things about women in general. weird aspect of the gender divide that i haven't given much thought to...

'ledge party' lol jesus fucking wept

This stuff makes me extremely uncomfortable because I know right here on ILX there are women who have said they are deeply suspicious of other women who say they dont get on well with their fellow females.

All of my closest friends are male. All of them. I have maybe 3 female friends who I might talk to randomly online now and then but one is busy with motherhood and one's in the airforce so I basically dont see them.

Its not a concious choice, I dont "distrust" women and I can't explain it, but then shit like this comes along and makes me feel like an outcast all over again.

(I was given a massively hard time in high school as well, but I dont place blame on that for how I am tbh - in fact I think its the fact I have 2 brothers and no sisters so I basically grew up around blokes)

FWIW guy friends are great, too. Take friendship wherever you can find it, is what I think – there just aren't that many people of substance in the world.

Just skimmed that book review but isn't it really "people at University behave like huge assholes"?

I cherish all my friends like wo, for sure. Actually the womenfriends I do have are mostly quite tomboyish gals now I think about it! (airforce chick, and bff's wife who calls herself a "blokette")

I don't think there are a lot of guys who are given a hard time for not having female friends, but OTOH I don't know because I'm not a guy, I'm not around when they're having guy talk. There's some people who think men and women can't be friends at all. If you start listening to people's opinions on this subject (gender & friendship) imo it leads to crazytown.

yeah
i think this is in large part because we haven't established a good vocabulary for talking about different types of people and their platonic relationships (or romantic, for that matter)

i've never felt that "i don't get along with other men" nor in my 40+ years ever known a man to voice a similar sentiment.

Without hypothesizing too much, this could be explained by maleness being the privileged erm...state. There's more cachet in disassociating yourself with the inferior group than allying yourself with them.

I can think of a few counter-examples.

I really hate gender essentialism so I don't really (want to) believe that females have this secret "dark side" of soul-eviscerating evil demon techniques and men just grunt it all out together. Like this comment: "Men can hurt my body but women can scar my soul," from that article. Or like a Louis CK routine I saw where he was saying almost the same thing, that men aren't that bad but women will tear out your heart and take a shit in it. I would like to think that men and women are equally capable of potentially psychologically fucking people up.

nor in my 40+ years ever known a man to voice a similar sentiment

*raises hand* yo

Mind, this may not have anything to do with an INDIVIDUAL'S reasons, but it's a starting point when you say you've never in 40 years heard a man say the reverse.

I feel like there's a gigantic knot of socialized gender roles playing into this that this woman is glossing over by buying into an essential "girls are BONDED" lie

Like, maybe the reason you've never heard a guy say this is because most guys, particularly ones around your age, have been heavily socialized into thinking that expressing ANY feelings not driven by aggression is the epitome of Not Being A Man.

i think when women say "I don't get along with other women." they don't really mean all women -- they mean, for a start, "the kind of woman who is not you, woman i am talking to, i don't normally get on with other women but i get along with you because you're just so likeable".

this is what i mean when i say that we lack a common vocabulary for talking about these things

i get along fine with men and women but is it wrong to admit to the fact that i don't get along with assholes? i find it hard to trust them

For me personally, its that I dont get along - not dislike, just feel no common ground at all - with "girly" girls. Forgive the phrase, I cant think of one more suitable. But I'm not at all someone who enjoys discussing the latest MAC lipstick trends, talking about/shopping for shoes and clothes, doing each others hair and brows, watching Top Model, discussing hot guys, and all that jazz.

... mind you it would be nice to have a friend who did like sharing stuff like cutting and dying hair, now I think about it.

This is not generalizable to anyone else but when I used to say I didn't get along with other women, what I mean was I was intimidated by a lot of types of women, basically anyone who I thought was prettier or more "popular" than me. Either people who were just intimidating or who matched a profile of girls who were mean to me in the past. I would have been afraid of the same types of men. It was just me being insecure. I'm still insecure like that, in a way.

Trayce, that girl who is into all of those things but NOT into anything more interesting or more "serious" that you might possibly be interested in, is pretty much imaginary. Is the thing.

Like, maybe the reason you've never heard a guy say this is because most guys, particularly ones around your age, have been heavily socialized into thinking that expressing ANY feelings not driven by aggression is the epitome of Not Being A Man.

*ding ding*

it's not all lollipops and rainbows with the male gender fyi

i have also heard women say something equivalent to "i don't get along with men" (and not in a 'oh men aren't they so awful can't live with em can't live without em' way) - something about how it was hard being friends with men, i think?

Trayce, I went out for lunch with a new female friend yesterday and she explained MAC makeup to me and it was pretty interesting! In general, I find "girly" girls harder to get to know, because we just don't appear to have anything in common and I tend to assume they're looking down on me for being dumpy and poorly dressed (nb, like past-Abbott, I also assume this w guys), but once we get talking I tend to get on with them.

And, you know, in terms of treating other people poorly, I would say my male friends were worse.

Trayce, that girl who is into all of those things but NOT into anything more interesting or more "serious" that you might possibly be interested in, is pretty much imaginary.

*nods* yeah you're right, and I realised that even as I hit "submit" actually. Its a furfy I think I've built up in my mind. I dont know why. I *do* have female friends who only ever seem to go on about that kind of thing but theyre not people I hand with closely so it isnt fair to paint with such a broad brush.

was expecting Kate to be here...

hand=hang.

what is a furfy? it sounds kind of cute.

i get along with men and women equally as long as they are civil and interesting to me. the thing is that i don't find people of either gender who interest me much in general, but if i did, i don't care if that person is make or female, i will befriend.

i have never had a problem with female friendships but i have noticed that close and personal ones depend more on trust/telling of secrets (generally) than friendships with men.

ken c otm

make = male
whoops

it's not all lollipops and rainbows with the male gender fyi

― men just grunt it all out together (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, October 25, 2010 3:40 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

no, i'd never say that. but there are differences, and this seems to be one of them. for the moment, i'm less likely to attribute it to anything than to simply observe that it exists.

Dark side? Like Heavenly Creatures?

I think I spelt it wrong, I think its furphy.

nor in my 40+ years ever known a man to voice a similar sentiment

OTM

And, you know, in terms of treating other people poorly, I would say my male friends were worse.
― ksh me thru the phone (c sharp major), Monday, October 25, 2010 3:41 PM (11 minutes ago)

OTM.

If you don't think that some of your guy friends are passive-agressively ragging on you behind your back, no matter your gender, then you are most likely fooling yourself.

i get along fine with men and women but is it wrong to admit to the fact that i don't get along with assholes? i find it hard to trust them

aw, most of my best friends are assholes :/

If you don't think that some of your guy friends are passive-agressively ragging on you behind your back, no matter your gender, then you are most likely fooling yourself.

no, they totally are. but male culture doesn't seem to have developed the same skittishness about betrayal by one's gender, the idea that men are not to be trusted. probably does reflect larger cultural presumptions that maleness is a privileged state (or rather, that maleness is the presumed normal/default human state). makes me wonder if women's distrust of womankind = internalized misogyny.

i have never had a problem with female friendships but i have noticed that close and personal ones depend more on trust/telling of secrets (generally) than friendships with men.

yeah, the ideal of female friendships seem to be this model of sharing confidences, telling stories, being honest and vulnerable with one another-- there are a lot of really high expectations involved imo?

i feel like maybe the 'romantic male friendship' of times past might have had a similar weight, once?

Sure, but now whenever it's portrayed in film, everyone in the theatre says "Pssst, gay! So gay." So.

Curiously, a lot of the people who mistreated me in high school were guys, such is life as a teenager where some people would rather punch you/pull your hair than admit they like you or wtf ever the deal is.

My high school best friend turned out to be a complete SWF psycho hosebeast though, so ... perhaps that's coloured my opinions a little. I didn't think of that.

if women's distrust of womankind = internalized misogyny.

Yes. I mean not for everyone. But the fact that it's even ACCEPTABLE to say, "I don't like women" in a way that you'd never say, "I don't like" any other group, even ones that are arguably not discriminated against, is misogyny at work.

Isherwood on feminine unsentimentality:

He asked himself: do I want to go to bed with more women and girls? Of course not, as long as I can have boys. Why do I prefer boys? Because of their shape and their voices and their smell an the way the move. And boy scan be romantic. I can put the into my myth and fall in love with them. Girls can be absolutely beautiful but never romantic. In fact, their utter lack of romance is what I find most likable about them. They're so sensible.

Isherwood theorizes that most women, taught to regard marriage as the ultimate good, only use friendship as a way station. Thus, the guy will have his fantasy football bros, while the woman will, at best, boast friends who are married and have children too.

gender is a ~~construct~~

but male culture doesn't seem to have developed the same skittishness about betrayal by one's gender, the idea that men are not to be trusted.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MbREI-RgL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

was expecting Kate to be here...

― men just grunt it all out together (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 25 October 2010 22:42 (38 minutes ago)

undercurrent of aggression, competition, and negativity tbqh

When I saw In The Company of Men, I thought it would be more credible if the two leads were women, at least based on the circles I run in.

Isherwood theorizes that most women, taught to regard marriage as the ultimate good, only use friendship as a way station. Thus, the guy will have his fantasy football bros, while the woman will, at best, boast friends who are married and have children too.

In this world, men will KEEP their friends regardless of marriage because marriage is not seen as "changing" them or being a watershed moment in their personal/non-spousal lives. Still sometimes true, but not rly, or not as more than an echo...at least, I hope.

I mean, I hope the corollary about women isn't true as more than an echo, not that men shouldn't keep their friends. That was unclear.

I'm a lot more open to female friendships than I used to be. Though I never really thought about it as an influence before, like Trayce I had brothers (well, brother and then a step-brother) and no sisters, so perhaps I was more inured to boy-culture - my brothers were older, too, so perhaps that deference in thinking that boys were 'cooler' or something? Having said that, I think the main reasons were a) girls really are shitty to other girls at school, and b) I got into music, and no girls who I ever met at my school shared my interests. It stayed that way at gigs post-school for a while, but gradually more girls who weren't just there for their boyfriends came along, and, y'know, that was cool. I got some female friends, and they were nice. No big deal.

The thing that bugs me to this day, though, is that even with female friends who I love and admire and have loads in common with, if the group is larger than two and not mixed-gender, they still start talking about shoes and bags and make-up. I would really like this to stop.

i've never felt that "i don't get along with other men" nor in my 40+ years ever known a man to voice a similar sentiment.

Probably because the men who don't get along with other men are avoiding you.

generalizations about gender are boring... even when they are true.

Nah, they're fun, especially when Oprah devotes episodes to them.

Ya, watching Oprah man bash for 60 minutes sounds like a ball. Sign me up.

i thought that isherwood quote was mishima! too insufficient in appalling spite, really.

i mean to have been mishima!

in hs i had a female friend who was particularly a broish - one time i was at a show w/her and couple dudes when my friend dan pointed out a similar group of people saying look they have a girl too - it was funny but it made me feel kind of weird

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnXOAWoNADw

i've never felt that "i don't get along with other men" nor in my 40+ years ever known a man to voice a similar sentiment.

Not that exact sentiment, but I seem to develop much closer bonds with women. WIth other dudes there's always an element of competition - even when you're talking about serious emotional shit or whatevs, there's a guard that has to be kept up, sort of an ingrained need to save face.

I've had good friends of both genders, although *generally* more male for some reason. I'm pretty shy but often feel I can be more myself around guys or forthright women. I think the thing that narks me most in that article is the idea that because we're female we're automatically in this 'sisterhood' where we're obliged to support other women just because they're women. Not a bad sentiment but can't we just support whoever we think deserves supporting?

The thing that bugs me to this day, though, is that even with female friends who I love and admire and have loads in common with, if the group is larger than two and not mixed-gender, they still start talking about shoes and bags and make-up. I would really like this to stop.

weird - this is so not my experience.

The last time I was at a party with a siginificantly large group of girls in the room, all of them (bar me) disappeared into the bathroom and proceeded to giggle and shreik and do each others hair and faces.

Fucking goths.

lol - i went clothes shopping in NY with my fellow ex-goth friend - it was great - we both considered "color" to be black, gray, or navy blue

trayce were you at someone's 12th birthday party? that's not how most women act fyi.

I think you missed her joke.

But the fact that it's even ACCEPTABLE to say, "I don't like women" in a way that you'd never say, "I don't like" any other group, even ones that are arguably not discriminated against, is misogyny at work.

This does not jibe with my experience, where people say with equanimity that they also don't like white people, men or specific types of gay people. I haven't heard as many people say that they don't like black people since I left high school, but I heard it plenty then.

In this world, men will KEEP their friends regardless of marriage because marriage is not seen as "changing" them or being a watershed moment in their personal/non-spousal lives.

Uh..... This is not actually in any way, shape or form anywhere near the single male stereotype of marriage, which is actually more like a funeral for your fallen single bro whom you will never see again unless he neglects his wife and ends up divorced and bitter.

No no, in the world Alfred's quote is describing. I said I hope it doesn't exist for ANYONE anymore.

oh sorry, stupid me not getting context

(also um... did I read that incorrectly or isn't the context of Alfred's quote about gay men)

Was responding more to A's paraphrase below that about the difference between women's friendships and men's. The idea being that women view their marriage as the ultimate goal and put aside "girlhood" friendships, whereas men keep their pre-marriage social circles.

women view their marriage as the ultimate goal
ew
not true ime

Maybe it was in 1940 or whenever Isherwood wrote it? I mean I don't know, I'm just misquoting Alfred paraphrasing a dead gay upper middle-class author.

misunderstood since 1940

trayce were you at someone's 12th birthday party? that's not how most women act fyi.

These women - when drinking and mucking around together - would do this, yes. Giggle, do their makeup, make their hair all big, get in front of web cams and do myspace poses and muck around. Not saying this is a usual or all-the-time thing obviously, just saying that at this particylar partym, I felt very alien and left out that I was the only woman out of the half a dozen in the room that didnt go into the bathroom to pluck eyebrows and put MAC makeup on and giggle about it.

And these were women well into their 20s.

Oh and "fucking goths" wasnt meant to be a punchline really, heh. They werent even all goths.

Was responding more to A's paraphrase below that about the difference between women's friendships and men's. The idea being that women view their marriage as the ultimate goal and put aside "girlhood" friendships, whereas men keep their pre-marriage social circles.

Yeah, I was just quoting Isherwood for spice. But it's true: in my experience, women are the flinty-eyed realistic ones who want to know whether "this" is a relationship; they want to know that means have ends. Guys are the silly romantic ones.

Trayce were you hanging out with a bunch of cosmetology students? Cause otherwise, wowie-zowie that is some ridiculous stereotypes in real life stuff. I would be worried I was about to get punk'd.

It is my experience that only people in beauty school invest that much time and energy into hair and make-up.

Srsly, I have one friend who would go swimming with her makeup on, nails did and sunglasses.

These days she looks like Gwen Stefani.

Theyre not makeup artists. I know a lot of women in the goth/burlesque/indie scenes who are basically walking china-dolls.

You know my sister? (Just kidding – I know you are not talking about her because my sister is a makeup artist.)

Try being a good looking younger women, The men all stare and try to get up your skirt. The older women hate you because they think you will unfair placement because you are young and pretty. The younger, not as pretty women, start rumors about you.....it is hard.

But I will still take PRETTY and smart any day.

yes, to be young and beautiful... its the worst thing ever.

I SAID pretty and smart, not beautiful.

Try being a good looking younger women, The men all stare and try to get up your skirt. The older women hate you because they think you will unfair placement because you are young and pretty. The younger, not as pretty women, start rumors about you.....it is hard.

I used to be a good looking younger woman, too, and none of that happened to me.

RIP hotties

it was hard out there for u

;)

So very very hard. I weep for you.

Hey, has anyone tried being a multi-millionaire? Apparently people say nasty things about you, it must be terrible.

i am pleased that after 1000 posts ppl finally start to think i'm a babe

for real though, if anyone does want to see my grade A rack, drop me an email

i think i probably trusted girls more than guys growing up but a large part of that might be differing patterns of maturity amongst ppl i know

i trusted girls more in the past but mainly i was hoping by trusting them they'd want to have sex with me.

it wasn't a very effective strategy btw.