Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship

by Kayleen Schaefer

We accept this state of constant fear as just another part of being a girl. We text each other when we get home

My friends took me out of the way I was taught to be and turned me into something better.

Men told us not to rely on our own sex—and turn to them instead.

They didn’t call that a catfight. They didn’t even call it a brawl. They called it a debate. But when we do it, it’s a catfight . . . and [people say] we hate each other, and that is just not the case.”

I was spending all my time doing what the writer Claire Vaye Watkins calls “watching boys do stuff.” “Nearly all of my life has been arranged around this activity,” she wrote

society often indicates to women that it’s not on the same level as the other relationships in our lives, such as the ones with our romantic partners, our children, or even our jobs. Devoting ourselves to finding spouses, caring for children, or snagging a promotion is acceptable, productive behavior. Spending time strengthening our friendships, on the other hand, is seen more like a diversion.

You can give everything you didn’t get to your little girl and then she can go out and give it to millions of women. That’s sort of emblematic of what women can do for each other,