To Sisterhood and Freedom to Think, Say and Be!

Recently when a friend of mine called from her Amazon office hundreds of kilometers away just to check upon me, catch up and simply talk, she said something that many women would agree with: "Pragya, I miss our LSR days, when we would sit in the foyer under the sun enjoying Maggi and iced tea, there was something about the female friends we made, now in the office it is hard to find something similar leave alone the same." It was not the first time I was hearing this. Nor the last time I can bet. I have experienced the good and the best times of having a women’s support system. As they say: God is a woman, and I truly and wholeheartedly believe in it. From writing me letters to wiping off my tears to bringing me flowers and kissing me on my cheek with their lipstick on, I have seen it all. The commotion of pre-exam week and the celebration of post-exam sigh, from heartbreaks to small wins, I have seen women cry, laugh and rejoice in each other's presence. I have lived in three different all-women institutions and have met women from different parts of the world and I only have one thing to say: everyone deserves the woman magic in their lives and if a woman loves you: platonically or romantically or as a family member, you are the luckiest being on this planet.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

I have seen women uplift each other and do small and big favours: from bringing chai to helping with motivation or simply being present over call and analyse each and every emotional upheaval of their friends to being excited about each other's birthdays and helping dress up. These might come across as oversimplistic and childish to some extent but that is exactly the kind of love and care that translates into bigger acts of love, comfort, emotional availability and platonic joy.

The emotional depth through which female friendships operate is relatively different from the male friendships. While the world is definitely run by practical purposes and materialist desires, it is sustained by emotional regulation, a sense of safety and the universal need for warmth, recognition and love. While I do not attempt to make this article a case on women being better than men since any such hasty generalisation would be illogical and unfair to the very potential of collective humanity to love and thrive together, I do think that healthy female relationships have a lot to do with their fairly deep understanding of care as an ethical given in the fabric of humanity.

                                           

As philosopher Martha Nussbaum says, emotions are a sign of cognitive prowess and not a weakness in any way, they are indeed a part and parcel of our ethical reasoning. Carol Gilligan, on the other hand, proposed the ethics of care that goes well beyond Kohlberg's ethics of justice and establishes that the moral development of women is largely driven by the culture of care: for oneself and for others. This helps them forge real relationships and see society as a fabric of interdependent entities trying to assist each other in sewing a stronger and firmer moral fabric. Thus, she emphasised on an "evolving sense of self" that many women carry. (However, women are not a monolith and cannot be boxed into the idea of caregivers as rightly critiqued by many feminists, the point of mentioning this particular concept is to show that many women have led states as well as countries with empathy as well as strength; in no way does caring imply subjugation or weakness. It is generally perceived that this culture of care translates into better and emotionally mature friendships.)

In a world of free market capitalism that thrives on people's insecurities, fears and shortcomings, female friendships based on truth and love empower women, make them feel at home and encourage them to shine in their own ways. Real friends do not handhold, do not look down upon you or judge you for your mistakes, they simply stand next to you, acknowledge you and give a nice pat on your back as you muster up the courage to face yourself. The idea of female friendships also helps one understand that in a society that thrives on caging women physically and abstractly, such friend circles become a way of resistance to being boxed within labels and limited identities.

Such wholesome stories of sisterhood transcend small ego battles, forging something real and sublime, as fresh as a daisy under the sun, as sincere as a child's innocence, and as strong as the timeless mountain peaks braving the gusty winds.