Female Friendship Myths

Table of Contents

• Complexity and Challenges in Female Friendships
• Competition and Jealousy
• Support and Strength in Female Friendships
• Cultural and Societal Perceptions
• Dynamics and Evolution Over Time
• Other

Complexity and Challenges in Female Friendships

If you’ve struggled in a friendship, you’re not alone. Most girls find that, sometimes, friendship feels like a roller coaster. One moment you’re climbing through fun and laughter; the next, you’re plunging into fear or frustration.

We live in a culture right now that pits girls against each other. We are brought up socially to be in competition with each other -who has the best body, more boyfriends, better clothes. And this kind of competition can be devastating on female friendships because it emphasizes a mentality that there isn’t enough to go around, Enough love. Enough attention. Enough success. But there is . There is enough to share with your girlfriends.

I think it's very rare that you see girl friendships on television. It's always cattiness and all that drama.

Simply put, female friendships face more obstacles because they often involve more emotion, more expectations and more potential for conflict.

I think all women have a friend who at some point dumped them or betrayed them or deeply disappointed them. And at the same time all women have a friend who they dumped or betrayed or hurt in some way. That's universal in women's friendships.

A lot of women, when they're young, feel they have very good friends, and find later on that friendship is complicated. It's easy to be friends when everyone's 18. It gets harder the older you get, as you make different life choices, as people say in America. A lot of women's friendships begin to founder.

Close friendships with girls come early in life. After thirty it becomes harder to make new friends – there are fewer hopes, dreams or anticipations to share.

The ladies, who had condoled so thoroughly with her during her time of grief, found it rather more difficult to participate in her happiness, which takes a true and proper friend indeed.

Prioritizing friendship is sometimes tricky; society often indicates to women that it’s not on the same level as the other relationships in our lives, such as the ones with our romantic partners, our children, or even our jobs. Devoting ourselves to finding spouses, caring for children, or snagging a promotion is acceptable, productive behavior. Spending time strengthening our friendships, on the other hand, is seen more like a diversion.

I think all women have a friend who at some point dumped them or betrayed them or deeply disappointed them. And at the same time all women have a friend who they dumped or betrayed or hurt in some way. That’s universal in women’s friendships.

I find I really put careful consideration into my friendships with women because the relationships can be so sensitive. Let's face it: some women can be down right catty. This is what makes me cautious, but also what makes my true friendships so dear to me.

I've come, even as a feminist, to dread the phrase 'female friendship,' because it tends to signal overdetermined relationships.

My writing partner, Joni Lefkowitz, and I love studying girl friendships in particular because they seem defined by a combination of codependent intimacy and subtle, constant passive-aggressiveness.

A lot of women, when they're young, feel they have very good friends, and find later on that friendship is complicated. It's easy to be friends when everyone's 18.

Competition and Jealousy

As far as I can make out, women's friendships with each other are based on a gush of lies and pretty speeches that mean nothing. You'd think they were all wolves trying to seduce each other the way they flatter and flirt when they're together.

Friendship between two women is always a plot against another one.

No friendship is so cordial or so delicious as that of girl for girl; no hatred so intense and immovable as that of woman for woman.

It is said that friendship between women is only a suspension of hostilities.

With girls, friendships are hard because you have to learn to get to a maturity level to love them but not want to be them.

As far as I can make out, women’s friendships with each other are based on a gush of lies and pretty speeches that mean nothing. You’d think they were all wolves trying to seduce each other the way they flatter and flirt when they’re together.

Women care about their friends.

This idea that we should be best friends with our partner of the opposite gender leads toward tremendous frustration. Did you ever notice that while men often refer to their wives as best friends, women usually refer to another woman in that way?

I'm used to one-dimensional female friendships. It's become a kind of trope.

My writing partner, Joni Lefkowitz, and I love studying girl friendships in particular because they seem defined by a combination of codependent intimacy and subtle, constant passive-aggressiveness.

A flirt spends her time making temporary male friends, but permanent female enemies.

Support and Strength in Female Friendships

Female friendships that work are relationships in which women help each other belong to themselves.

Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses... swapped back and forth and over again.

Good female friendships are the strongest relationships in the world.

I envy the tireless intimacy of women’s friendship, its lastingness, and its unbendable strength.

As I grow older, I think friendship between women is a thing to cherish.

I like being friends with other women who are supportive of women. I think that is important.

I think it is a good thing to have woman friends at every stage of life. We confide in each other, we support each other, we understand each other most of the time. Of course, sometimes we are competitive or angry or distant, too. But I do think it is important not to let the main friendships slip away in the sweep of the days.

If you can make nature and technology friends, then you can make everyone friends; you can make everyone intact. That’s what women do a lot – they’re the glue between a lot of things.

Female friendships have sustained me from my earliest days as a child.

I think that the friendship that women share is so powerful. In fact, there's nothing quite like it. People talk about mother-child bonds, but I would argue that female friendship bond is also in a league unto its own.

You too might find that your women friends are your truest friends, your sisters are the keepers of your memories and hopes for the future.

Abandon the cultural myth that all female friendships must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive. This myth is like heels and purses – pretty but designed to SLOW women down.

Female friendship... I think you have friendships that come and go, and then there are ones that the girl becomes a part of your bones.

I do make some conscious efforts to write female friendships, intergenerational female friendships. I make a conscious effort to include things that I see as important real parts of my life that are not reflected as much as I think they should be in popular culture. We very seldom have the opportunity to see women compete and remain friends.

Cultural and Societal Perceptions

I think it's very rare that you see girl friendships on television. It's always cattiness and all that drama.

Prioritizing friendship is sometimes tricky; society often indicates to women that it’s not on the same level as the other relationships in our lives, such as the ones with our romantic partners, our children, or even our jobs. Devoting ourselves to finding spouses, caring for children, or snagging a promotion is acceptable, productive behavior. Spending time strengthening our friendships, on the other hand, is seen more like a diversion.

The common definition of a clique is an exclusive group of girls who are close friends. I see it a little differently. I see them as a platoon of soldiers who have banded together because they think this is the best way to survive Girl World. There’s a chain of command, and they operate as one to the outside world, even if there may be dissatisfaction within the ranks. Group cohesion is based on unquestioned loyalty to the leaders and an “It’s us against the world” mentality.

Abandon the cultural myth that all female friendships must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive. This myth is like heels and purses – pretty but designed to SLOW women down.

This idea that we should be best friends with our partner of the opposite gender leads toward tremendous frustration. Did you ever notice that while men often refer to their wives as best friends, women usually refer to another woman in that way?

It's hard for me to be involved in superficial friendships with other women.

I've come, even as a feminist, to dread the phrase 'female friendship,' because it tends to signal overdetermined relationships.

Common perceptions of female friendships are morning coffees discussing children, bags, periods and agreeing about the misdemeanours of men... mild, soft, nurturing relationships.

The world is what women make of it. This point is crucial – we must make something of it. This presupposes some kind of location in the ordinary world of human affairs, much of which is male-created. Friendship provides a point of crystallization for living in the ordinary world, not the pretense for exiting from it. Friendship does not automatically convey the means of living in the world or of making women into world-builders, but it does provide a location in that world.

We are women who can speak for ourselves and we know that lots of people want to use us, including people who profess to be friends.

I think it’s very rare that you see girl friendships on television. It’s always cattiness and all that drama.

If you feel like it’s hard to be friends with women, consider that maybe women aren’t the problem. Maybe it’s just you.

I like being friends with other women who are supportive of women. I think that is important.

I find I really put careful consideration into my friendships with women because the relationships can be so sensitive. Let's face it: some women can be down right catty. This is what makes me cautious, but also what makes my true friendships so dear to me.

Dynamics and Evolution Over Time

Friendships unfold gradually as women share intimacies with one another- this takes time. You need to be willing to let your friends know the real you, but you don't want to spill your guts out the first time you're out to lunch.

I should wish to see them very good friends, and would, on no account, authorize in my girls the smallest degree of arrogance towards their relations; but still they cannot be equals.” (10)

In college, it's very easy to maintain your female friendships because you're in such close proximity all the time.

What we are is colleagues. I got to know these women last year, and good friends you have for years and years. But I think we're developing friendships.

I'm quite obsessed with the idea of nailing the girl friendship. It's such an art, so delicate.

In college, it’s very easy to maintain your female friendships because you’re in such close proximity all the time.

Close friendships with girls come early in life. After thirty it becomes harder to make new friends – there are fewer hopes, dreams or anticipations to share.

I had a vague memory of the intensity of teenage female relationships; more of a passion than a normal friendship.

Female friendships have sustained me from my earliest days as a child.

I do make some conscious efforts to write female friendships, intergenerational female friendships. I make a conscious effort to include things that I see as important real parts of my life that are not reflected as much as I think they should be in popular culture. We very seldom have the opportunity to see women compete and remain friends.

A lot of women, when they're young, feel they have very good friends, and find later on that friendship is complicated. It's easy to be friends when everyone's 18.

Good female friendships are the strongest relationships in the world.

Females and boys are the only creatures that propose others for friendship. As for the rest of us, friendship sort of just happens.

I’m quite obsessed with the idea of nailing the girl friendship. It’s such an art, so delicate.

Other

The women glare at each other. Grin. You have friends when you're fifteen years old. Sometimes you get them back.

You could be a really great and fabulous person, but if your method of communication with a woman doesn’t trigger her physical attraction by “pushing the right buttons,” you will only ever be “just a friend” in her eyes.

The #1 friendship challenge women have is finding time to spend with each other.

She had a genius for friendship; girl friends she had in plenty; but she had a vague consciousness that masculine friendship might also be a good thing to round out one's conceptions of companionship and furnish broader standpoints of judgement and comparison.

I'm just talking specifically of women's friendships. If two women go to a bar and they are fighting over men, it makes it much easier for the men. If two women are very close and they act as it makes it very difficult for the men to pull one over on anybody.

Women bestow on friendship only what they borrow from love.

Female friendships are of rapid growth.

When a woman becomes her individual most effective close friend existence is simpler.

In the forming of female friendships beauty seldom recommends one woman to another.

I think the issue of female friendship really resonates well with women, ... So many women have a friend like Darcy or can relate to the feeling of being second-fiddle to a friend.

There is something very easy about women's friendships that you don't see as often with men. We all know examples of this, when women will just call each other up or drop a line, not with anything specific to say.

If you feel like it's hard to be friends with women, consider that maybe women aren't the problem. Maybe it's just you.

Anything I say about women, I try to make sure that at least five or six friends of mine are going through a similar situation. That way I'm not picking on my wife.

The reason why most women have so little sense of friendship is that this is but a cold and flat passion to those that have felt that of love.

Middle school female friendships are intense. They shift, fall apart, reassemble. A sixth-grade girl will stab her friends in the back. She will spread rumors. She will slam doors. She will taunt and yell and accuse. But come between her and those same friends? She will rip your throat out.

I’m just talking specifically of women’s friendships. If two women go to a bar and they are fighting over men, it makes it much easier for the men. If two women are very close and they act as it makes it very difficult for the men to pull one over on anybody.

More Collections

Friendship Quotes Hub

Sports Team Confidence & Success Quotes

Persistence and Progress

Best Limited Social Circles Quotes

Best Life Quotes

Best Intense Rivalry Games Quotes