The sustenance women find in friendships gets no formal recognition, legal or social, creating a stark contrast between the way women see their close friendships and the ways they're perceived by others. Like recent books that seek to elevate female friendship, All The Single Ladies (which, full disclosure, I worked on as a research assistant) and The H-Spot, Text Me When You Get Home reimagines what support systems can look like, bursting with friends - no spouse or ring needed. The book's stories bring to life the ways the waning dominance of heterosexual marriage can leave space for a heartier form of friendship among women, relationships that fulfill many needs once thought to be the domain of husbands. Women are increasingly getting married years later than their mothers did, or perhaps not at all.

This is but one moment when Schaefer's treatise on friendship becomes, in part, a story about marriage.

She spent some time early in her career working at a men's magazine, where she admired the male journalists and tried to be a 'cool girl.' Meaningful connections with other women didn't top her priority list.īook Reviews An Exploration Of 'Friendship' That's Full Of <3

As a kid, she saw other girls as competitors rather than potential buddies - an all-too familiar experience for many women. Schaefer salts her cultural analyses and interviews with her own experiences, though she casts herself as an unlikely chronicler of female friendship. In telling this complex history, the book takes readers to intriguing locations and moments, from the cul-de-sac where the author Judy Blume once longed for female companions to a stately New York apartment building with 375 single rooms, all occupied by women. Schaefer's book Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship charts our growing appreciation for relationships between women. With our fictional and real worlds populated with duos like Abby and Ilana, Oprah and Gayle, and Thelma and Louise, a world without female friendship seems as distant as one without indoor plumbing. The term 'friend' was reserved for the half of humanity that purportedly possessed superior morals - men - and only used to describe other men. Women in the Middle Ages were excluded from many realms: the law, universities, and surprisingly, from friendship, writes author Kayleen Schaefer. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Text Me When You Get Home Subtitle The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship Author Kayleen Schaefer

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