Posted on 07/10/2005 6:46:42 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Women experience friendship differently and more deeply than men - and when it ends, they experience the loss more deeply, too.
That's the stance taken by writers of recent books about failed friendships that have sparked debate online and in the real world - among friends, of course.
"Men seem to have a hard time understanding women, and it really is nice to have someone understand you," says Jenny Bryers, a UW- Madison graduate student. "I don't think losing a friendship is necessarily worse for women than for men, but we probably let it bother us more. Women generally let things bother them more than men, especially if it's something we have no control over, something we can't change."
Susan Johnson, associate casualty claims representative at Madison-based American Family Insurance, added: "I think men bond differently, and forgive easier when it comes to male friends, and move on to bond with others. I don't think men hold grudges as long as women, because they don't get as emotionally involved with their friends."
These local women would find similar social commentary served up in recent books such as "The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away," edited by Jenny Ofill and Elissa Schappell. The Doubleday book came out in May.
The new take on female friendships runs counter to the stereotype of the "catty and competitive" woman, said professor Susan Friedman of UW- Madison's Department of Women's Studies and English.
We typically believe "that women are rivals for the attention, love, and approval of men and that they therefore can't really be friends (with other women)," she says. "But there is also a lot written that goes against such stereotypes: recognition that women need their friendships with other women in order to get through life's troubles and trials, often suffering related to their relations with men, their troubles with caring for children or parents, their difficulties on the job or combining family and job responsibilities."
In fact, in May, Shelley Taylor, author of "The Tending Instinct" and a neuroscientist at UCLA, announced that hard science suggests that "there's an important biological role for women's friendships that scientists have largely ignored."
Fundamental differences Biological or not, some at least perceive a real difference between the genders' friendship styles.
Johnson recalled a long-ago friend who after high school started to date the same man as she did. "It immediately severed our relationship," Johnson said. She had tried over the years to contact me. But I just didn't know what to say to her, so I never responded. I do know the betrayal I felt was deeper and hurt more than any man could have caused."
After 12 years, they patched things up. Laura Malischke, owner of Acclaimed Resume Services, has not. She recalls a long-ago friend from the dorms at UW-Eau Claire.
"She introduced me to new music, new books, and new ways of seeing the world," Malischke says. "While I had originally found her to be the strong, stand up for your beliefs-type, I began to observe that she was a very needy and very dependent girl."
It came to a head, she says, during a camping trip, during which her friend stayed up late complaining, getting drunk and throwing up.
"She dragged me down emotionally and physically with her neediness and constant seeking of approval," Malischke recalled. "I did a very selfish thing and removed her from my circle. I'm taking the good things from our relationship, while still remembering why exactly I decided to end it."
But others will have to be convinced that "The Friend Who Got Away" reports anything unique or even valid. "I think the whole thesis of this book is wrong, at least for me," said Katjusa Cisar, a student at Edgewood College. "And I think the emotional scars from broken relationships are difficult to bear for both sexes, not just women."
Sudden interest? Why all the recent interest in women's relationships with other women? It may be new to publishers, but not to women, said UW-Madison's Friedman, who has worked with the issue of women's friendships in relationship to literature.
"In the 1970s, there was an interesting transition from women's 'coffee klatches' to women's 'consciousness raising groups,' as women began to see that their personal problems were part of a larger societal pattern," Friedman said. "Women's friendships are at the heart of this phenomenon - existing before consciousness raising groups, and of course afterwards."
Or it could be marketing. Sheelah Kolhatkar, writing in the February New York Observer, says that "The Friend Who Got Away" and other anthologies "could all be a sign that the confessional personal essay has reached the peak of its power, culminating in a breathless surge of self-help chick-lit - a combination of memoir, therapy and girl talk. The anthology frenzy also suggests that the publishing industry is furiously trying to replicate one huge success by producing countless imitators."
Back in 1996, Kate Fillion, in her book, "The Myth of Female Virtue in Love, Sex, and Friendship," charged that studies of women's relationships were fundamentally biased.
"The problem isn't that men lack the gene for 'rapport- talk,'" she wrote. "Researchers' heartwarming description of female friendship omits a significant detail: many of these friendships are rooted in a fundamentally adversarial attitude toward men. Women's sharing and caring frequently involves swapping stories about what jerks men are and diminishing men to shore each other up."
Two recent books:
• "The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away," edited by Jenny Ofill and Elissa Schappell. The American Library Association Booklist says, "By breaking the silence about failed friendship so literately, this book appeals to many more readers than just students of interpersonal psychology."
• "Secrets and Confidences: The Complicated Truth About Women's Friendships" Edited by Karen Eng (October 2004, Seal Press). Amazon.com says the book concludes "problematic women's relationships with one another can be intense, intimate affairs, more steadfast than any romantic relationship and ultimately, more fulfilling."
I dunno. It is definitely harder than most things, including brain surgery and rocket science, but I don't make any money at it. Which does suck, BTW. : )
The types of payment we receive are more valuable than money. :-)
I resemble tha remark.
PS... What color nail polish is that?
Who does your facials?
Have you tried the new blah blah blah....
Well teeny, I knew I liked you for a reason. I am your FRiend, like it or not and you are mine.
We are cut from the same cloth, I think.
ditto
I've never had a facial.
I cut my own hair (it's curly, so no one can tell when I screw it up).
But I did get a massage yesterday. Those are killer.
Avgas eats nail polish.
I haven't had a facial in years.
I have to have my hair cut professionally - it's a wild mane.
I don't blow it dry or curl it or anything. I run a pick through it and walk out the door. The sun and wind do the rest.
;-)
PS... I would love a massage.... right about .... nnnnoooowww..
Would that cloth be burlap? Nothing floral, I hope.
I still don't know what Toile is!?
I own nothing with flowers on it.
Or anything pink.
My walls are covered in airplane pictures - and one original landscape. Oh.. and that autographed picture of Micky Mantle.
It made me think that I might suggest one of my children go into massage therapy as a career. ; )
I love flowers, as I am a gardener. But if someone tried to put some kind of flowerdy b.s. border wallpaper in my house, they would die trying.
I have three girls. I have A LOT of pink in my house. But not where it matters.
My walls are covered in art. Lots of friends and family members who are artists, and my sheet rock has paid the price.
I remember one time in another life, I was trying to be friendly to the women folk at a New Years party. They kept getting pissed because I always hung out with the husbands, and figured I was just a whore or something. I didn't have the heart to tell them that it was because I thought they were all a bunch of shiny door knobs, so I decided to give it a shot. Soon, the conversation turned to the best pantyhose and which toe nail polish wouldn't chip. I am not kidding. It was at that very moment that I decided to never again try to "fit in". I forever went back to the land of foul language, imbibing, and dirt.
You and me both.
I've tried to be friends with my buddies' wives and have practically crawled out of windows to get away from them.
Yesterday one of them tried to tell me all about her new nutritionist, manicurist, whatever, I nodded off twice and ran away when she turned her head.
Yuck!
PS... I believe it's pronounced just like Tool.
But uglier.
;-)
you said tool
LOL!!
I'd recommend staying away from it. It sounds like it might be contagious.
The great thing about women like us, at least from our husbands' perspectives, is that when we do get all girlied up, it makes them feel like they are having unlawful carnal knowledge of another woman. :-)
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