Women who are only friends with men are bad women who will be mean to your wife
This epitomizes the comment section on this article.
Listen, I’m not fond of the “ladies are catty” remark. It smacks of ignorance, and the reason if and why ladies are thought of as more “catty” is probably due to the fact that women are socialized to avoid conflict at all costs because it can complicate the relationships they are told are their penultimate reason for being.
HOWEVER. There is nothing wrong with having mostly doods for friends. Sometimes, women get along with men because they may do something crazy like share the same interests or personality or whatever. When people make blanket statements such as “you only hang out with men because you’re insecure and want their approval”, or “women who try to be one of the guys will never be dating material”, or “you are the ignorant one”, it is no better than the generalizations that the other person may have insinuated in the first place.
I have male friends and lady friends. The male friends are JUST as platonic as the lady ones, and we NEVER have conversations smacking how “awful” women are without speaking to the socialization that leads women to be more passive aggressive and how wrong and rooted in patriarchal notions of feminine “niceness” it is.
The notion of “approval” is laughable. We ALL want our friends to like us and approve of us, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc. How about “my friends are my friends because I enjoy being around them”? Too hard?
