Why are a man’s female friends so poorly regarded?
Female friends or better known as Male-female friendships are often discussed, debated and sometimes denounced. Reasons abound why other women dislike those who prefer to hangout with men. At least one scientific study showed that women who prefer to make friends with men are seen as distrustful by other women. Ironically, if these male friendly women make female friends, it’s with other like minded women. Their own biggest reasoning for having so few female friends is that they feel that most women play head games, ie. they don’t trust them.
Interestingly enough, the question remains for many whether or not female friends for males are even exist. Everyone has his opinion on the subject, so of course science has examined the issue. One study done with university student subjects showed that men were not only more likely to have romantic attractions, but they also falsely believed that their feelings were secretly shared.
Female friend’s also respected that a male friend in a romantic relationship was off limits; while if the female in the friendship was the one in a relationship, the male tended to think that she still might have romantic tendencies towards him. Likewise, his female partner probably has the same suspicions and mistrusts the friendship because she believes that the female friend comes with ulterior motives.
A chicken ain’t nothing but a bird.
But the problem doesn’t stop there. Women who become a man’s female friend are often uncomfortable around other women; whom they view as being hostile and/or superficial. Their opinion is women who don’t seek friendship with men are more opt to be jealous and manipulative. Feminist argument that this results from internalized sexism and a lack of confidence, but usually it is just different experiences.
Girls, for instance, who grew up rough-housing with brothers, or doing physical labor on a farm, didn’t necessarily grow up playing with dollies, gossiping or worrying about breaking a nail. So they feel awkward in a gynocentrism environment, and will find men generally more straight-forward and easier to make friends with. Becoming the female friends to more and more men, while often excluding other women from their inner circle. It has nothing to do with a lack of self confidence, it is more a lack of inclination and patience
Feminists also argue that a man’s female friends exemplify the problem where women have no right to their own personality are are purely defined by their gender. Being the only woman in a group of males, gives her the impression that she’s somehow privileged, and getting masculine validation. But a multi-generational study out of Germany (2022) found that women who seek to be the female friends of men are actually self-directed women who value their independence and autonomy.
For generations most cultures limited male female interactions, particularly on the peer to peer friendship building level. The western world, for last half century has eradicated that notion, mixing us together in social and professional settings for our entire lifetimes. As a result many of us count both sexes among our friends well into adulthood, but this does nothing to stop the jealousies of romantic partners or romantic desires that one party might have.
Sex workers and swingers have a solution to this paradigm of mistrust and misunderstanding. Fuck your friends and make friends with those you fuck. Okay, it’s not for everyone. You have to be secure in your main romantic relationship and that means that you are beyond childish jealousies. Also setting limits on the romantic nature of the sexual partnering is vital to maintaining a long-term male-female pair bonding.
This doesn’t mean that multiple partner romantic relationships can’t work…currently with the gender and sexuality blurs in western society, it is being tested. Not to mention that men have been marrying multiple wives simultaneously for centuries, and it didn’t bring civilization to it’s knees. In fact, given the right cultural context, it’s a practice relatively free of jealousy, and embraced by the women.
So can men and women be friends, of course. But they need to be honest about their expectations and stop thinking of friendship as a secondary, consolation prize to romance.
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