In letters to each other during the 19th century, some women refer to men as “the grosser sex.” Friendship, not romantic relationships, were a place where women felt free to be themselves and express their emotions. And intense female friendships, even those that might seem erotic to modern eyes, were accepted because women were supposedly so pure that they wouldn’t have sex with each other, even if they slept in the same bed all night. If a woman professed to have a crush on another woman, it wasn’t seen as commentary on her sexuality. “Men also had very intense friendships,” Coontz says. She points to letters in which men who identified as heterosexual “talk about falling to sleep with their head lying peacefully on the breast of their good friend.” But this idea of men and women as opposites had a chilling effect on friendships between men and women.
Toward the end of the 19th century, middle-class Americans began to recognize that these ideas made it hard for men and women to construct intimate marriages. Gradually, middle-class Americans adopted the practice of dating, which had already emerged in the working class. It became more acceptable for women to appear in public, even to work. This led to the rise of what was called “companionate marriage.” It was not yet the era of “I married my best friend,” but it became accepted that women and men should share activities—though emphasis was still placed on women adapting to men’s interests—and pursue a mutually fulfilling sex life. Ironically, this new emphasis on sexuality meant that same-sex behaviors that previously had been perceived as merely affectionate—like holding hands or falling asleep on the breast of your good friend—were now sexualized. This dealt a huge blow to close same-sex friendships, which suddenly became less acceptable as they came to be viewed as a threat to male-female romantic partnership.
“In the early twentieth century [there was] a huge campaign by the so-called experts to wipe out the idea of these girlish crushes that used to be considered perfectly acceptable and kind of fun,” Coontz says. “And men found themselves under suspicion if they walked down the street the way they used to, with an arm around each other’s shoulders.” Women in close relationships with other women could be labeled lesbians—and some of them undoubtedly really were lesbians. This was before the gay rights movement made it safer to come out. It can be really hard to tell which historical bestie pairs were indeed platonic pals, which were, in fact, romantic partners, and which fell somewhere in between.
Some of the old ideas about gender difference persisted, giving a conflicting set of messages to women seeking friendship: get close to other women (you’re built for friendship), but not too close (you don’t want to be seen as lesbians), use those friendships to provide support until the day you find a man to marry, then abandon those relationships on your wedding day, when you will be expected to fully devote yourself to hearth and home. Coontz interviewed many women who came of age in the 1950s and ’60s, who told her that their youthful friendships with other women revolved around trying to meet a husband. These women expressed sadness that, once everyone was married off, they had little to talk about with their old friends anymore.
“So this was the real low point in the history of female friendships,” Coontz says, “and of course, by that time, male friendships were really off the table. Men were increasingly expected to get any emotional support they needed from their wife, not from other men.” By the 1970s and ’80s, as middle-class women returned to the workforce and sought political and economic equality, they began to reject the idea that they should abandon their friendships upon getting married. And people of all genders started figuring out how passionate romantic love could coexist with passionate friendship bonds.
It’s pretty clear to us that, as a society, we are still working on this. We are trying to let go of a lot of outdated ideas about what it means to be a man or a woman, a friend or a spouse. On a personal level, the two of us have always wanted to be independent women who don’t center our conversations on men. We want people of every gender to be free to feel the expansive joy of intimate friendships. We want to have a supportive network of friends, fulfilling romantic relationships, and strong family bonds—while still charting our own course in the world.
* * *
Quickly and easily, we had simply become enmeshed in every part of each other’s lives. We didn’t feel like we had a single secret from each other. This feeling was recognizable only by absences: the absence of misunderstandings, the absence of shame or fear in sharing things, the absence of insecurity. It wasn’t that we made a conscious pledge to be friends forever. It’s that we accepted a truth deep within ourselves that our lives, from that point forward, would always include each other. Anything else was unimaginable.
Much like there is a superficial story of our origin, there is also a superficial story of chosen family. When we thought about our own chosen family and its future, we considered only the good parts. We never paused to think about what chosen family might mean if—or, more realistically, when—things got difficult. We have yet to hear about family, chosen or not, without a single fight or long-simmering resentment. Families are sources of love and support, but they also have moments marked by disappointment and awkwardness. Most families don’t just have beautiful rituals; they also have destructive patterns.
It didn’t even occur to us. During our first years together, we didn’t have a single fight—not even once—over something trivial. If pressed, we couldn’t name a single fault about each other. We hadn’t been tested yet. We were not assessing why our friendship worked so well. We were not thinking about the long-term implications of claiming each other as family. We were just enjoying it.
And for the moment, that was OK.
FOUR
I Don’t Shine If You Don’t Shine
Aminatou remembers the day one of her managers told her that he wouldn’t mentor her.
She was in his office at the think tank, a cramped space cluttered with boxes and dry cleaning hanging on the door. Aminatou had been looking forward to this meeting with him, because she thought he was finally going to take an interest in her work and encourage some goal setting. But instead he said, essentially, that she had gone to the wrong schools, that women didn’t distinguish themselves in policy, and that his time was better spent working with the men in her cohort. He said all of this in such a casual, matter-of-fact way that it took Aminatou a long time to understand just how sexist he was being. Mostly she was worried. When she was hired, they had told her they would sponsor her visa. She now found herself questioning their commitment. Why would they go through the effort for an employee who wasn’t even worth mentoring?
She was also crushed about what this would mean for her career. But she would soon learn that she wasn’t alone in lacking mentorship.
A few blocks away, Ann was regularly frustrated by her own bosses, who referred to even the most senior woman on staff as “sweetie” and sometimes treated the younger women in the office as personal secretaries. When Ann worked up the nerve to suggest to one of the magazine’s founders that he wasn’t paying enough attention to ideas put forth by women writers, he defensively told her, “My first wife was in the women’s movement!” Ann nearly spat out her coffee.