Episode 69 - The History and Evolution of Female Friendships
INTRO: Today, I talked to guest Sydney about the book, Text Me When You Get Home, The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship by Kayleen Schaefer. This book is fascinating, y'all. It's about the history, sociological perspectives, research, and more about how female friendships have evolved and changed over the years.
I learned a ton. I got angry because, surprise, surprise, the patriarchy definitely affects how female friendships have been treated over the years. And I gained a whole new appreciation for my friends. So I hope you learn something and you gain a whole new appreciation of your friendships. Thanks so much for listening.
HANNAH: Text Me When You Get Home by Kayleen Schaefer. So you said you have that book, right, but you haven't read it yet?
SYDNEY: I have heard of it.
HANNAH: You've heard of it, okay. Yeah, the title, does it make you think about how lots of friends, stereotypically in general, female friends, text each other, or tell each other, text me when you get home?
SYDNEY: Yeah, every time. Every time I leave, especially if it's like, well, really only if it's at night. If it's at night, I'm always like, tell me when you get home.
HANNAH: Yeah, so I really like that that's the title of this book, because it does focus on female friendships. And I hate using a binary because I know it's not just women and men, but that's what the book focuses on.
SYDNEY: It's okay to say that like, male friendships are typically a little different.
HANNAH: Yeah, no, they are.
SYDNEY: You can say like, typical.
HANNAH: I guess I'm just also thinking like, what about people who are non-binary and like people who are trans? Like, it just makes me feel like it's leaving people out. So I do want to like, presence that. But the book focuses on female friendships, and the author talks about her own experiences and also has research about friendships, which I thought was fascinating. And I'm going to tell you some of it because of course it's infuriating, the history of friendships.
SYDNEY: So excited. The history of everything is infuriating.
HANNAH: That’s true. Is history ever like, “oh, that's nice.”
SYDNEY: Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm mad at everything.
HANNAH: So first of all, to connect it to the title, she was talking about how, just like how beautiful it is that we take care of each other and that we say, yeah, let me know when you get home safely. We have to look out for each other because of course, statistically women are more likely to be in danger when they go home than men. And then she also weaves in her own experiences.
And the kind of arc of her own experiences is, I thought female friendships were stupid at first when I was young because that's what I was told. I was told like cat fights, like women don't get along. The point of life is to find a man.
It's kind of like the message I've heard, but hers was more extreme. Like I never thought female friendships were stupid, but she was like, oh yeah, like I hated women and all these things. Like she like definitely kept women at like arms length.
And she was talking about how like in college, she was in the sorority and there was kind of like an unspoken quote unquote rule that like the goal was to get a man and then you're kind of like passed off to the man. And they would have a candlelight ceremony. Did you have these?
SYDNEY: Not surrounding men. Okay. But we absolutely had candles.
HANNAH: They were about different things?
SYDNEY: Yeah, it was like the initiation into the Sorority involved candles, but not like marry a man. Definitely what they wanted, though.
HANNAH: Okay. Yeah. So this particular candlelight ceremony was like, someone got engaged and then, but they wouldn't reveal who it was yet. And then they'd be like, we're going to have a candlelight ceremony. And they're all so, so excited. And then it's nighttime and they pass around a candle.
And it was like the person who was engaged would, I wish I remembered, either blow it out or like keep holding it. And that's how it was revealed who it was. And then it was like kind of like a ceremony that again, she said it was like kind of unspoken, but like now you are being given over to the man, you know, like, you know what I mean? So it's like friendships were seen as like a holding pattern until you find a man.
SYDNEY: Those can be really cultish. And that sounds really culty.
HANNAH: It does a little bit.
SYDNEY: Yeah, just a little. I mean, again, I was in one. Yeah, I'm in a glass house, so I'm trying not to throw stones.
HANNAH: And then it was like, the journey she took was like, as she became an adult, she was like, oh, why have I been so stupid? Like, female friendships are extremely important. In fact, they're just as important as romantic relationships and kind of made the conclusion of like what we've been talking about, of like, why does there have to be a hierarchy? So yeah, like, and then she also had some research in there. So I want to share some of that research because I found it fascinating.
Oh, this is interesting. So there was a study in the 1990s. First of all, in the 1990s, researchers didn't think about or test the ways men and women might be different, according to this book.
SYDNEY: I'm not surprised. My sister, who is a pediatrician, was telling me about all of the issues, especially she does, like, she works at a learning hospital, so, or a teaching hospital, so she does a lot of research and publishes a lot. But there have been, like, medical studies done on, like, medications that are for women, and the only people included in the trials are men.
HANNAH: So, this is a recent study. This is also recent studies?
SYDNEY: Within probably the last 40 years, yeah. Like, they'll just, like, oh, this medication is for, like, something to do with a uterus or something. I don't know, something specifically for women. They will test it only on men.
HANNAH: WHAT? Oh my god. Oh my god. Okay, that is so infuriating. And it's the same with psychology research, apparently.
SYDNEY: Yep. Makes sense. It checks out.
HANNAH: It checks out. Yeah. And so this woman did this study to see how females versus males responded to stress. And they did it with rats first. First of all, no one wanted to publish her research. I think it wasn't published till later. But she noticed that the females and the males responded to stress extremely differently. The males would kind of freeze and the women would, and it says, quote unquote, like have a party. And they were like, what is happening?
This is weird. But really what it was that they would turn to each other when they were stressed out. So that was like the grooming and the quote unquote, having a party was just like seeking out company with each other when they were stressed, essentially.
SYDNEY: Like, weirdly beautiful.
HANNAH: Isn't that sweet?
SYDNEY: I just really, that makes me really happy that they would like, that's so checks out that like, oh, something bad happened. I have to call my girlfriends. I have to call. Or like, I want to go hug someone.
HANNAH: I know. It's so true. And it's called the tend and befriend response to stress instead of the fight or flight. So, you tend and befriend each other. So, yeah, we get a surge of oxytocin and it propels us to seek out friends, but men don't really have that same response. So, I just thought that was really interesting. And it just, I don't know, I had no idea and it makes me like view female friendships in a really different way.
This author also talks about the shift in like, how many people, how many women got married, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago versus how many women get married today. And as I'm sure you know, and is pretty widely known, less people are getting married and they're getting married older. It's shifting in that, like, she was talking about how, and it's still kind of like this, but the priority was take care of your family, like tend to the house, friends are an indulgence. And we're shifting out of that, but like some of that.
SYDNEY: That's so ridiculous to me that friends could be an indulgence.
HANNAH: I know.
SYDNEY: What does that even mean?
HANNAH: I know. And she was saying that, like, she was talking to her mom, and she said her mom is now in her 70s, so I don't know what the math is on that, but the era that she was married, I don't know, like, married, like, 50 years ago, she was like, I didn't even think that friends were, like, an option. She was like, I just wrote, it was during the Vietnam War, because she was saying how, like, I just wrote letters to my husband who was in war, or who was at war, and took care of the house, and that was all I did.
Like, I didn't even think about, like, making friends. And her daughter, aka the author, was like, what? Like, I don't understand.
SYDNEY: What a lonely life.
HANNAH: I know, but that was like, you know, according to this author, that's like how it was more common for life to be like that back then, especially like middle class, middle class people. But it's changing. And something I always say is that, like, sometimes we don't know how to live a certain life until we see examples of it.
And we're seeing more and more examples of what a life can look like as a single, single person, quote unquote, single, like, not with a romantic partner. There were less examples of, like, what life could be like as a single woman.
SYDNEY: Just considered them spinsters, yeah.
HANNAH: Yes, exactly. Yeah, and just the whole idea that, like, even though this has been getting better over the years, it's still a lot more likely for, like, friendships and best friendships to be really valued when you're a kid. And then when you get older, it's, like, not so valued. So, like, when you're a kid, they'll be like, oh, who's your best friend? Oh, you have a best friend? Like, tell me about your best friend.
And then it's like, you grow up and you're an adult and people are like, oh, who's your partner? Like, who are you dating? And they don't...Like, do you... When you were an adult, did anyone ever ask you, oh, do you have a best friend? Like, tell me about your friend. Probably not.
SYDNEY: No. We're only asked about our romantic partners. And it's like, what's so interesting, too, when you say that is where, like, that question is so singular, too, is who's your best friend? And that creates such an awkward, it's like, there has to be, it's like, they're trying to create that vacancy or, like, fill a created or fabricated vacancy that you need to have one best person in your life, or you need to find one other person who's just your everything. And when you're younger, it's your best friend. And then when you're older, it's your partner.
And that's so much pressure to put on one friendship. And then especially as a younger kid, I don't know if this is something you struggled with, but like, what if my best friend, if I'm not their best friend to them, but they are to me, like, what level of friendship are you? Like, who has the stronger bond between the two people? You know, if you're like in a friend group, it's like, oh, who's closer with Emily? But like, of almost the competition of who's closer, who's a better, bestest friend, but there are spots.
HANNAH: Yeah, it's, there's this quote in the Mindy Project where she says, Danny, a best friend isn't a person, it's a tier. And I will never forget that.
SYDNEY: I like that, it is a tier. You can have multiple.
HANNAH: Yeah, that's how I think of it, because yeah, and it makes this weird competition-y. It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, you're right. We're primed right from when we're kids to be like, who is your person? Who's your one person?
SYDNEY: Yeah. What happens if that person changes or doesn't want to be your person anymore? And then all we have left is to mourn that one friendship and not having any others, or that relationship and not having any others.
HANNAH: That's why the ending of friendships is incredibly devastating and not recognized, which this book definitely goes into. And it can be just as bad and maybe even worse than a romantic breakup, depending on the circumstances. But it's not recognized.
You can't ask for time off work.
SYDNEY: Yeah. I'm so sorry. I'm having trouble with my friend. “We don't care.” Nobody asks about the status of your friendships, which honestly I would really like it if somebody asked me that, because my friends are pretty cool. Or at least I think they are. And even just personally, I'm so preoccupied with the idea of friendships and trying to invest more in them because society is not built for large communities or for like friendships. Like even just thinking about housing or the nuclear family, like single family homes, like the American dream, it's just capitalism.
And then you're isolated from everybody and then you're only dependent on that one partner. So you're spending all of that money and you're not using your community, which could give you more resources that you don't have to pay for. Even just the idea, I'm going on a small rant here.
HANNAH: No, please.
SYDNEY: Of like the idea that it takes a village to raise a kid. That people don't do that anymore at all. It's like your inner circle and really just the two parents, like the parents in the nuclear typical family. And that's insane. If you think about a baby.
HANNAH: They're so overworked, yeah.
SYDNEY: Yeah. It shouldn't be this hard. And I think it really, there is such a, you make such a good point too, especially with like reading this book. And I think it speaks to why so much of this is coming up for me is like if we valued friendships a bit more, like not everybody would have to have kids. And then you get to aunt and uncle, other children in a community. And like, I don't really want to have my own children, but I would love to be an aunt to any of my friends' children and be a part of their like child care.
HANNAH: So kind of like how I said the book was saying, now there are more examples of what it's like to live as a single person. I have told a friend of mine many times, I don't think I've seen an example of how I want to live. Because every kind of type of life I kind of try on in my mind doesn't quite feel 100% right. And whenever I'm supposed to imagine one year, five year, ten years into the future, I just see blank. Like I can't even imagine it because it's something that I haven't seen. I don't know if you relate to that at all.
SYDNEY: No, I mean, that's really interesting. I think there's like one little, I'm very lucky in my life to have had a fantastic example of an unmarried child-free woman in my life that I grew up with. My great aunt was married for a long time and almost adopted children with her husband, but her husband backed out at the last minute.
And her husband also lived a certain lifestyle that caused him to die very young. And he was very away. He just like smoke and drank all just so much and had health issues and was like, no, I'm going to live the way I want to and I will die however I die. And so she was widowed probably in her 40s. And she never remarried. And she became like a very close, essentially like more of a grandma to me than my actual grandmother.
Never had kids. Died saying to my mom who became her primary caretaker that she has no regrets in her life. She died when she was like 93, like lived on her own for like her entire life, had the coolest apartment full of like, she traveled a lot. So it’s all these artifacts and she had this cool iron bust of Albert Einstein that was the coolest thing. And that was, she would just spent so much of her life and did so many cool things. She used to volunteer to read to the blind and like record novels for them or like go in person. She just did the coolest shit.
And so I was really fortunate to have, it’s really ironic because I get so much, we get so much pressure from my mom to be partnered, get a house, move to the suburb, have kids, give me grandkids, give me grandkids. And like none of us want that type of life at this point, really. Yeah. My sister is trying to get pregnant, but it's like my mom's pressure around it has gotten to the point that she doesn't talk to my mom about her fertility.
Because there is, and like my mom has never, on the contrary, like has never, she'll ask me how Connor is, she doesn't care how my friends are. Connor being my boyfriend, like it's never, it's always about, I don't know where I was going with that, but I had a, so I had a very good example of like a spinster woman that wasn't actually a spinster.
HANNAH: Let's reclaim the word spinster.
SYDNEY: Yeah, hell yeah. And she's just like the coolest, like funniest lady that was also able to be like a really fun aunt, but we do need more examples of what life looks like being child free, partnered or not partnered.
HANNAH: Yeah, and what it's like to build a community without necessarily having to create a nuclear family. And that's been something I've really been grappling with the past like five-ish years. I'm like, oh, this nuclear family thing isn’t going to happen for me anytime soon. I don’t even know if I want it to. Holy crap, I’m completely alone with it. Yikes, yikes, yikes. And even with roommates, I’m like, still on my own.
SYDNEY: Because you haven’t been taught how to make that relationship give you what we see in a romantic one. Like we don’t know how to, especially adult friendships. I don’t know if you have also struggled with making new friends as an adult. It’s hard. It’s really hard.
HANNAH: It’s so hard.
SYDNEY: And I hold up some of my friendships as like, how did we even make this happen? Like how did we become friends? And even to the point, I think it’s so funny and one thing that would be so interesting to look into is the advent of Bumble BFF. If you've heard, like, yeah, Bumble has like a friend app now to do it for a while. They've had it to find friends.
HANNAH: I think that's really cool.
SYDNEY: It also feels a little sad. You know what I mean? When we're younger, like it was so much easier to make friends. And now we just have no access to community. And if we do have access to it, you have to either pay to get in, or it's like not that accessible to you.
HANNAH: No, I know. It's so true. And it's like, yeah, I kind of feel split about it because I'm like, cool, an app is like acknowledging platonic connection. And also half of me is like, that's kind of sad.
SYDNEY: Because like, it's really cool that that exists, like that's awesome. But when you realize that it was created out of necessity, or out of like major loneliness, it gets a little sad. And there's so much pressure to find that, to just find a person, which is like so odd. We are so individualized. Like we think that one person will solve all of our problems or provide us with all of our comfort.
HANNAH: And that's another thing. There's been almost no research on friend groups. The research is done on friend to friend as if they exist in silos. And I'm like, oh my God.
SYDNEY: The dynamics of a friend group is like, just take one friend group and you could probably write a dissertation, like have a full five-year PhD research into the group dynamics.
HANNAH: She also did kind of an analysis on the media, TV shows and movies and friendships. And I was like, yes. Like this is exactly what I'm interested in. She was saying that, like in the 80s, the 50s through the 80s, representation of female friendships was actually pretty good in TV with like I Love Lucy.
SYDNEY: Golden Girls. That’s too late.
HANNAH: Yeah, no, that too. She mentions that. But then in the 90s, it like weirdly changed where like best friend got downgraded to being one-note characters or they just didn't exist. And there were more shows about single professional women like Murphy Brown or Allian McBeal. And it wasn't until like the 2000s that like friendship kind of started to slowly come back. And then it kind of made another resurgence kind of around like, I don't know, mid-aughts like 2014 Broad City came out.
And then lately, I know there's been more like friendship shows. But, oh, apparently, this will make you so mad. When they were trying to pitch Broad City, which started as a web series, they were trying to pitch it as a TV show. An agent said, who was a woman, she said, I don't get why we'd watch this. Are they going to get married?
SYDNEY: Because that's the only thing?
HANNAH: As if like a platonic friendship wouldn't even be interesting. I don't know. I do not understand. Oh, okay. Here's something else that would make you mad. So throughout history, I'm going to have to read this:
“Throughout history, women have seen their bonds dismissed, picked apart or outright mocked. Men from classical philosophers to religious leaders told women they had weak morals, which made it impossible for them to engage in friendship. Because of this, women may have been close, but they didn't dare call themselves friends. In the text we have, you don't find the word friend connected to women, says Marilyn Sandage, who co-edited Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age.”
So literally, I did not know this. In history, women were not allowed to use the term friends or friendship with themselves.
SYDNEY: How was that policed?
HANNAH: I guess they were just like mocked and dismissed.
SYDNEY: That's so...What the f-
HANNAH: I know. I had no idea.
SYDNEY: Like, what was the point of that? I just don't-
HANNAH: Because men wanted everything for themselves.
SYDNEY: Like, what about us is like, we're- You know what? No, I'm not gonna victim blame. What about men makes them so hell bent on ruling something? I don't get it.
HANNAH: I don't get it either.
SYDNEY: It's really, it's so silly.
HANNAH: It's, and I feel like there's, that obviously is no longer the case, but that kind of stuff echoes through history. Just like, you know, lots of things like colonialism, racism, still very much alive. And there are also echoes from the past.
Oh yeah, and also this woman was so upset about the fact that she couldn't say that she had deep friendships that she wrote a religious leader asking him, like, help me understand, like, this woman feels like a friend, like, is she, like, I'm so confused. And he was like, at first he's like, oh yeah, you know, I actually disagree with the cynics. I do think women can have friendships, but I cannot say that women are capable of all those excellencies by which men can oblige the world. And therefore, a female friend in some cases is not so good a counselor as a wise man.
SYDNEY: Don't trust that woman, trust me instead.
HANNAH: That's exactly what it says. It says, the books then goes on to say, “this history helps explain how the idea that women can't trust each other, that we're better off foregoing friendship because eventually we're going to fail at it became so intractable. Men told us not to rely on our own sex and turn to them instead.”
SYDNEY: It’s like the original gaslight lie. You have to listen to me because I know more than you. God, that’s so stupid. It’s really wild. It’s like, the development of, who gave these men the audacity? Like where did that come from? Who was the first?
HANNAH: Who was the first, that’s a good question, I don’t know.
SYDNEY: Yeah, like who modeled this stupid behavior? Where like, what one man got the idea in his head that he was better? In general I want to know more about friendship, but it’s really hard to find.
HANNAH: Do read the book Platonic, because that's the first book I've read that she does have some research and science and admits like this science is so incomplete. She's like, most of it was done on college students, like all this stuff, but like it's what we have.
SYDNEY: It's a terrible time to evaluate friendships. I don't know why we're doing that.
HANNAH: I know. I know. Yeah. But that's what's available right now. So but it's a good book.
SYDNEY: Yeah, OK. Yeah, that I've definitely heard of Platonic and Text Me When You Get Home. So God, it's such a thing. And there's like now I'm going off on other things, but just the idea that it's such a woman oriented thing to care about somebody's safety and not something that's so present in men. I find that really interesting that like we feel almost the obligation to make sure our friends are safe.
HANNAH: And like I rewatched Promising Young Woman the other day. Have you seen that?
SYDNEY: Yes, I have.
HANNAH: Yeah, I was talking to a guy about it. And he was like, yeah, I'd never... Because you know when she is dating the guy and then he's like, “oh, weird, we're at my apartment. Do you like want to come in?” And she immediately like shuts down. She's like, yeah, sure, whatever, let's do it.
And he's like, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. And then she leaves, she's upset and she like kicks the trash can. That hits such a chord for me because like dating is not safe. It's actually extremely unsafe. And we have to be like so like aware of our surroundings and like, and of their intentions and everything.
SYDNEY: Hypervigilant. Hypervigilant.
HANNAH: And like I had a guy friend who was like, I did not realize like what one thing I learned for that movie is that like, when you're a woman and you're dating, you have to like worry about your safety. And like, that must be really hard. And I was like, yeah.
SYDNEY: That must have been hard to like face as a friend to be like, what? You haven't thought of this, sir? Like to be on the end of that.
HANNAH: Yeah. It's also like, I guess, I think it's not that he didn't think that we ever have to worry about our safety. It's that he didn't think about how it complicates a budding romance. You know what I mean? How it's like, they actually were getting along really well. But then that hypervigilance made it tricky. So it was a little more nuanced than just like, I can't believe women have to worry about their safety. But that's been a huge thing for me. In my 20s and now early 30s, I don't enjoy dating.
I feel like we were lied to in all those TV shows. We're like, it's so fun. A firefighter will see you and ask you out. A guy at the coffee shop will see you and ask you out. Then you go to the library and the hot librarian will ask you out. Just like, you're surrounded by hot men. It'll be great and so fun. I'm like, actually, this is not only is it stressful, it's legitimately scary.
SYDNEY: Terrifying. Scary.
HANNAH: Yeah, and I'm like, I got to figure out how close I want to get to this person. How safe do I feel? At what point do I go into his apartment or vice versa? It's the worst.
SYDNEY: It's the worst. Just like the decision paralysis of like, there are so many landmines that you can step on as a woman, it seems, or like so many eggshells that you have to like, walk around for your own safety of like, oh, if I say yes too soon, I'm a slut or if I say no for too long, I'm a prude and I'm no longer interesting. Like, it's just, there are so many double edged swords. And if more men like thought of like, oh, maybe she like doesn't feel safe yet, which is why she doesn't want to come to my apartment, maybe they could reflect a little bit more on that.
HANNAH: Yep. And I've been, I've been like, not broken up with, because it's not like we were official, but like so many guys stopped seeing me because I was like, I need to wait a couple or a few weeks. And they're like, that's too long.
SYDNEY: May I introduce you to your right hand or the left if necessary. It’s really frustrating. Yeah.
HANNAH: Honestly, it was probably for the best because those people clearly didn't have patience anyway, which is probably not good. But it's just like, jeez, the wheeze. Like it really, for years, I was like, okay, so if I don't sleep with them pretty early on, they're going to lose interest in me almost immediately. And that was like the assumption I had for a long time because that was what was happening. So it's just, it's just frustrating. I just hate it.
SYDNEY: Yeah. And then it's on the contrary too, because I like was very haunted by that idea of like, don't sleep with someone on the first date, don't do anything on the first, you know, like that idea of you're not allowed, even if you wanted to, to explore any kind of like sexual desire with someone or have a one night stand or have something not as casual. And I was so ingrained in that, that I didn't allow myself to explore it like on my own.
And I find it like, this is a very nuanced thing, but it's something I kind of struggle with of like, what would dating look like now? And would there be less miscommunication and bad sex? I don't want to say assault. If women were encouraged and told like, hey, you're not like a whore. You're allowed to like kind of have sex like a man, or you don't have to like, there is such an identity for women, I think that it goes along for that. And a certain standard that they're held to, that men aren't like, nobody thinks twice about a man having sex on the first date.
You only think about the woman doing that. It's like, what would the world look like if we were a little more empowered and had more like safety? If you just kind of created that idea of like, oh, this is like a two-person thing. Like, oh, I can also have desire. It's not just the woman who has to say no until it's a good time.
HANNAH: I know. In Glennon Doyle's book, Untamed, she was like, it took me so long to think, oh, what do I desire? Because she was so focused on being desired. That blew my mind when I read that I was like, oh my God, I think me too? It was so deeply ingrained in me that I didn't even realize that's kind of more the way I was leaning, was being desired rather than what do I actually desire? Then I'm like, oh my God, I don't know. I desire to be desired?
SYDNEY: Oh, weird. How do I do it? Yeah. I've had moments of being intimate with someone, soon, and it's in the back of my head that something says, like, you're not allowed to go that far, or however it is. It's not actually what I want.
Or like, in that, like maybe I would have been comfortable with that. But it's like this societal thing, and I've actually said, I think I said it to one person, like, aren't you not supposed to have sex on the first date? Like, not like it was a personal preference, but like it was a societal rule for women. That's really frustrating because I should just, we should just do whatever we want and have that be respected.
HANNAH: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, so I'm tying this back to Friends also because I think it really relates to it. Like, everything I've learned about dating and sex and all these things, I would say 99.9% of it has been from other female friends. School didn't teach me shit, you know?
My parents gave me the sex talk and stuff, but I didn't learn the ins and outs of stuff. And it's like, yeah. And I've had a couple friends the past five, ten years that have been extremely candid about their sex lives. And I appreciated it so much because I'm like, first of all, it makes me feel less ashamed. Second of all, I'm like learning a lot.
SYDNEY: Hell yeah.