Pat Taub
In our increasingly unsettled times, I treasure my close female friends who offer support and solace for navigating the road ahead.
When I told a friend I was blogging about women’s friendships, she good-naturedly commented, “If grown women had pajama parties, they wouldn’t need therapists.”
She was referring to the close connections among girls that often get lost when women mature, becoming preoccupied with family and careers. Feminist psychology contends that because women are affiliative by nature they frequently find their voice and come into their own in the company of other women. It’s among trusted female friends where women find validation as they speak freely, cry, laugh and become their authentic selves.
Spending time with a close friend can be a balm in a troubled world
Women’s friendships have sustained women for generations.
As a young girl I observed my mother’s transformation on those days when she hosted her bridge club. I’d arrive home from school to a carefree mother tending to a living room of talkative, laughing women smoking up a storm and sipping martinis. It was the 1950’s when my mother and her friends were slaves to the role of the homemaker, following recipes and housekeeping advice from popular magazines like The Ladies Home Journal. For a few precious hours on bridge club days the prescribed roles went out the window.
Reminiscent of my mother’s bridge club, although no one smoked pipes!
With her bridge club my mother had permission to unburden herself of her domestic pressures, to gossip good naturedly, and to receive affirmation for my father’s preoccupation with work, or for her demanding mother-in-law. When the bridge club meeting was over, my mother retreated into her customary suffering in silence mode.
As I grew up, I discovered for myself the joys experienced in the company of girlfriends. I’m still in touch with several friends from college. Although we write or see one another infrequently, I take comfort in knowing that old friends have similar issues with aging as we confront bodies that are wearing down along with anxieties about finances and managing when we lose our autonomy. We frame our complaints humorously, revisiting the laughter we shared as coeds.
Three friends who have known one another for decades.
While my female friendships have been largely positive, they haven’t been devoid of struggles. I hold a painful memory of a close friend who decades ago suddenly dropped me, casting me into a depression that was every bit as devastating as when a love relationship ended. Another time I had to make the uncomfortable choice to end a friendship when it became toxic.
I don’t know how I would have survived without supportive women friends when I divorced; when I struggled as a single parent of adolescent sons; when I got fired from my job at the Syracuse Newspapers; and when my mother was dying.
A hug from a friend can be wonderfully restorative
Dear friends were also beside me when good things happened that called for a celebration: when my Syracuse radio program, “Women’s Voices” won a national award, when I moved to Key West, and later when my first grandchild was born.
Now that I’m in my eighth decade, close women friends are my salvation. They comfort me and validate my concerns. Case in point: In late 2024, I started meeting monthly in a women’s support group with seven other lifelong activists. We came together over Israel’s assault on Gaza, processing our agony over the heart-breaking stories emerging from Gaza, while brain-storming non-violent responses. We are still meeting, powerless to stop the genocide, but determined not to look away and do what we can in our small corner of the world. We have become lifelines for one another.
Members of my Peace Women’s group celebrating a member’s birthday
Women’s communities have nurtured me in other fundamental ways. During the ‘90’s I was in several women’s spirituality circles where we developed sacred rites for healing one another in times of personal crises.
A Women’s Spiritual Circle similar to those I joined
More recently I was part of a women’s spiritual retreat center, which I discovered when I struggled to terminate an unhealthy love relationship. Being nurtured by a circle of wise women felt nothing short of a miracle.
To quote the actress and playwright, Anna Deavere Smith:
Friendship is a wildly underrated medication
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