The Magic & The Power: A Celebration of International Women's Day

As a celebration of International Women’s Day on 8th March and with the wise words from some of the inspirational women in her life, Sara Whatley tries to unpick female friendships and the power of the sisterhood

Gal pals. Bosom buddies. Besties. Girlfriends. Whatever you call your female friendships they are undoubtedly some of the most important relationships in your life.

This year International Women’s Day is rallying behind the call to ‘Invest in women, accelerate progress’, as well as supporting women in issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights and violence and abuse against women. Standing side by side with our fellow women got me thinking to female friendships and the importance of these relationships. To help me unpick this enormous subject, I spoke to some of my female friends and got their opinions on the importance of their own female friendships.

Friends can be by your side through decades, longer than romantic partners and long before children come on the scene. They know you in a way no one else does. My longest friendship to date was formed at school with a girl I liked the look of. Fiona had lovely long curly dark hair and soft dark eyes. One lunchtime I asked her if she wanted to be friends, and nearly 30 years later, we are as close as ever. She is a given, a constant, an unconditional.

A woman needs many friendships over her lifetime. We need the daily check-in friends – “How did that dinner go last night? Did your work pitch go down well?” – and the ones you can call in the middle of the night in tears although you haven’t spoken to them for weeks. We need work friends, play friends, friends to stretch us and friends to nurture us.

Cheryl, tall and athletic with university age children, told me how much she values the forgiveness amongst friends; “we don’t always get it right but at least our friends have always got our back,” she said.   

Friendship needs shift as we move through life. There was a time I craved hedonistic fun, and I fell in with a crazy crowd of women for that exact purpose. Through more reflective times in my life I have needed totally grounded friends, or friends seeking change and exploration themselves. New mother Natalia said, “As a teen my female fiends were the ones I worked out who I was with. They created the opportunity and support to try things out, no matter if it ended in success or total embarrassment. As I’ve got older my female friends are the ones that help reinforce my principles and loves, and who I am. I get an energy from them that keeps me happy and balanced.” 

Some friends are very niche to a specific time. At university I had some fabulous female friends who were as geeky as I am, and we fed each other with literature, poems, ideas, and endless discussions in the SU bar over cheap beer and loaded nachos. Those relationships were instrumental to my learning and I felt very connected to those women while we were all in the bubble of academia, but as soon as that had burst and the real world came knocking the relationships dissolved (bar one, still friends today). We needed each other in those moments but no more. And that’s fine. Not all friendships can continue, and not all should. “My female relationships are, and always have been everything to me,” said Fiona. “I am grateful everyday for the ones that are still existing relationships, and for the special memories from ones that have moved on. I sincerely have no idea what I would do without them.”

It’s those memories of friends that can live on and continue to feed us in the present day too. Parish Councillor and dedicated grandma Angela still holds dear past female friendships from school: “I still wish my first best friend happy birthday in my head on June 1^st but I haven’t seen her since I was 11,” she said.

I recently had a weekend away with three other women and the supportive energy we exchanged was phenomenal. I came home sated when I didn’t realise I was lacking. We encouraged each other, listened, talked and it gave me a new energy and confidence to tackle projects I had been stalling on. “What I love about my close female friends is how different they are to men!” said Shirley, with her can-do attitude and endless generosity. “They actually listen to you, respond with interest and empathy and think of you, asking about your life. I need my man, but having close women friends too is the secret to a fulfilled life.”

It struck me how friends of differing ages feed us in different ways, but in particular, how important I find it to have some friends similarly aged to me to share the synchronicity of life stages. My mum recalled a teenage friend who had long black hair, just the same as hers, and she wrote in her diary at the time: “Let us plait our hair together so that no one can tell whose hair is whose.”

I think of breastfeeding side by side with friends, sharing birth stories and nappy changes, sleep patterns and the soft, still, sedentary moments of new motherhood. I would have been lost without that kindred sisterhood energy. “Female friendships have always played a huge part in my life,” said Ruth from her stylish Hove home. “From giggling with friends as teenagers, meeting like-minded women at university, sharing experiences of birth and coming to terms with motherhood, to most recently sharing stories about menopause and feeling supported by friends going forward into mid life.”

And as age progresses our bodies change again; I see older female friends walking together with careful steps, slight limps protecting bad knees and hips. But to see them together you know they are all right, they have their friend to lean on. “I find women's strength immeasurable and most women I meet, I am in awe of, for the strength they show in adversity and the endless patience they have,” continued Ruth. “A good quote me and my friends share is 'behind every great woman there's probably a bunch of other great women’.”

I spoke to professor Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University, who has been studying friendships in both humans and monkeys for over 50 years. “Women's friendships appear to play a very important support role for them, especially the best friend forever (which 85% of women have according to our samples),” he said. “but the emotional intensity of the friendship also makes these relationships fragile – if they break, they break catastrophically, much as a romantic relationship does.”

How does this differ from male friendships, I wonder? They appear to me to be much more casual, even long-term male friendships seem to lack some of the heat and intensity of female friendships.

“The difference can be summed up thus,” continued Dunbar. “For women, who you are (as an individual) matters, not what you are (or what you do); whereas for men, what you are matters, not who you are as an individual. Men's relationships are more club-like in this sense – and the "what" here refers to being a member of the club. This is reflected in what keeps friendship going: for women, it is engaging in conversation, but for men it is activity-based (conversation has zero effect on men's friendships). The dynamics of friendship are very different in the two sexes, but they are just different ways to achieve the same social end.”

With this in mind, we can congratulate the makers of Friends who were spot on with their portrayal of their 20-something group of American friends. We watched the girls share deep and emotional issues while the guys played ‘fire ball’ in the apartment next door. But both groups achieved the same thing, or the same social end, as Dunbar said.

Interestingly, Dunbar finished by saying that the number and quality of close friendships, for both sexes, is the best predictor of future mental and physical health and wellbeing. So, I will be adding friendships along with healthy eating and exercise to help me live longer and happier!

A school-mum friend shared how female friendships have also built her confidence over the years. “When I was young I had yo-yo friendships, one minute having fun and feeling a part of something, the next I was dropped. This knocked my confidence,” said Kristy. “Now as an adult, I have confidence and this shows in the various friendship groups I have. I love strong, independent women who try and figure stuff out, are authentic, kind, funny and show their vulnerability in their strength”

The final female I spoke to was my gran, Jeanette, who is a nonagenarian. “I’ve known a lot of people during my life, friendships come and go,” she said. Jean remembered one particularly good friend, Nina, who she worked with: “Nina was head of department on the ground floor where we sold baby clothes and hosiery. She was a lovely, gentle lady. She was young and wanted children but she never did. After her husband died she was left alone. She moved away to Norwich but we stayed in touch for years.”

After my gran moved into a retirement development she positively blossomed. “I have lots of friends where I am now; Maggie and Dot, we go to the Thursday club and coffee mornings together, we have good fun. It’s important to have friends at our old age; we look out for each other and look after each other,” she said. “Most important is my family, but family can be friends as well,” Jean concluded.   

A conclusion I harmonise with; my sisters are dear friends and form part of the web of female solidarity that I surround myself with. I can only hope I form that web for others too. Let us thank our lucky stars for the friendships we have and continue to support each other in every which way we can; with power, energy and the magic of the sisterhood.