Why Women Owe A Lot To Their Girlfriends

“I’ll take care of you for a change.” In Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam and Laila’s relationship is as intertwined as a creeper. The vines of this creeper keep overlapping and in the end, Hosseini incorporates love, trust and sacrifice to intensify the relationship the two of them share. Their relationship is like a well-built plant. When the lives of these two women were plagued by socio-political, mental and sexual oppression, regardless of the tenets of caste and creed, they allowed their love for each other to grow while both of them were married to the exploitative and dehumanizing Rasheed. When Rasheed was beating up Laila, Mariam killed him.

“I think women know how to be friends. That's what saves our lives,” the American short-story writer and novelist Alice Adams once said. It might seem unlikely at first. Because, since the beginning of time, all that women have been taught was how to fear and hate each other. From Disney’s Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid to even HBO's Sex And The City reboot, And Just Like That, all we saw, are vengeful and “jealous” women attacking each other. 

Importance Of Female Friendships

American writer and professor, Roxanne Gay writes in her New York Times best-selling essay collection, Bad Feminist,  "Abandon the cultural myth that all female friendships must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive." She adds, "This myth is like heels and purses – pretty but designed to SLOW women down." Likewise, American journalist and former New York magazine columnist, Gloria Steinem says, “Women understand.” 

While there is a continuing struggle for our sex to be seen, heard, and valued in the same way as men, an excellent chance to combat sexual discrimination and gender inequality, is to fight it together. When women have been doing it for years, it has led to some of the most effective societal and cultural changes. 

Contrary to popular belief, female friendships are like a safe space.

Even within celebrity culture, there has been a shift from the “cattiness” of the '00s towards women sticking up for one another. Clearly demonstrated through the Free Britney movement, we saw Paris Hilton pen a beautiful tribute to the star after she was released from her conservatorship. Comments and arguments such as “Women cannot be friends,” and more dreadfully foolish ones like, “Women are not funny,” are ridiculous notions with no supporting evidence. People keep bringing it up again and again because it conforms to their own views. Men and even women patriarchs say a lot of things just to make themselves feel better and it is only wise if we ignore them. 

Suggested Reading: Female Friendships: Why Women Must Turn to Each Other for Solidarity & Power

Criticisms of “women who are best friends are just angry feminists/lesbians,” have become a regular claim or just one we happen to have heard a lot. Beyonce also agrees, “I love my husband, but it is nothing like a conversation with a woman that understands you. I grew so much from those conversations.” To make our point clearer, we have some scientific evidence to prove that women supporting each other is greater than the men in their lives supporting them. According to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, women with early-stage breast cancer were four times more likely to die from cancer if they did not have many like-minded friends. Those with a larger group of friends with early-stages of breast cancer had a much better survival rate. 

Real friends don't expect, they just support and understand.

Therefore, contrary to popular belief, female friendships are like a safe space. In fact, sensitivity is a strength, especially when it comes to women being there for their friends. One of the greatest things about having close female friends is that they can be a judgment-free zone. Regardless of men and women complementing each other, women mainly thrive on strong relationships with their girlfriends. Getting an outlet for their problems, thoughts, feelings, and triumphs women feel a close bond when they are with one another. 

Views expressed are the author's own.