SIsterhood

[mei]

I took a class back in my undergraduate in 'Evolutionary Psychology' and I remember my TA at the time remarking how "they" dont know why women are friends. He furthered by saying how it made sense for men to be friends from an evolutionary standpoint because men needed each other to hunt things down and bring back to their families, contrasting

Comments

[aslant]

I think in the workplace, women have been conditioned (in a sexist and capitalist paradigm) to view women as competition, which is such bullshit. And it's definitely exacerbated when women view their status only in relationship to men, which in my experience is the case with many women who only have male friends.

But also, I'm not sure I agree with your professor...having just read Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's excellent book Mothers and Others, there is plenty of evidence and research to support the value of and need for intra-female friendships and bonds. The cooperative instinct for group survival, food access success, and childraising is so paramount to human psychology, forming reciprocal social bonds is important for ALL tribe members, not just the men. It sounds like your professor's viewpoint may have been overly influenced by the school of thought that retroactively assigns nuclear family patterns...Hrdy talks about this a lot, it's kind of crazy how much conflicting research was ignored or passed over because several schools of anthropology and evolutionary psychology were invested in specific theories, often informed by specific political and/or cultural trends at the time. And Hrdy points out that while we can't know what was true in older times, studying current day hunter gatherer tribes shows that family patterns and social hierarchy varies considerably, but reciprocal social bonds, both male and female, are pretty universal. Furthermore, in modern days, we know that mentorship is more effective when you feel your values and experiences are reflected in your mentor or role model. We all gravitate towards those who understand us, especially in the workplace.

In any case, I feel like work culture does not yet have a good practice of teaching and valueing peer mentorship outside of the male paradigm, which is a disservice to everyone. Because why should men be restricted to a sexist paradigm, either? I feel most supported by female colleagues in my field and definitely struggle having a male boss who can be pretty tone deaf...anyway, yay female bonds. It's so important to me.