A comment on the social interactions of women.
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Author: Anuradha K
I think friendship can be the most lighthearted relationship that one can have with another human being. It is usually devoid of all the emotional baggage that accompanies other relationships. That is why I feel that women need good friendships in their lives. As a woman myself, I think we often take ourselves too seriously and lose out on the fun aspect of life. There is so much importance given to finding the right boyfriend or husband that the good old friend takes a back seat. A boyfriend or a husband can never take the place of an old friend. Women think that the man in their life would replace their best friend. All their expectations are placed on this one relationship which invariably causes a lot of strain to it.
The structure of the family is undergoing a change all over the world. The support of an extended family, in the form of mother-in-law or sister-in-law is slowly disappearing. However, women continue to be largely responsible for the family apart from having a successful career. As a result, I feel there is a lot of pressure for women to prove that they have it all. Very often this pressure comes from other women themselves. This is where I think having a good set of friends, with similar view points would help us. We need to talk out our problems with people who are slightly removed from our immediate family and whom we can trust.
A good friend can be an excellent support system. Informal discussions about careers, interests, hobbies are necessary to maintain our identity. It would also give us new ways of looking at our problems. One woman’s dream can lead to the fulfillment of another woman’s dream. We need to know of success stories close to us and this would in turn motivate us to strive harder. There is no need to look for celebrities or famous personalities as role models; we do not need to know the stories of women CEOs or Presidents. We and our daughters need more every day women who are able to achieve their goals and be happy.
We often hear of negative stories like a mother being jealous of her own daughter’s success or the mother-in-law being afraid of her daughter-in-law’s success. This is the result of extremely narrow thinking and living on the part of women. There is so much of this envy and jealousy among women being projected by the media that many believe that a woman cannot appreciate another woman’s growth. This is a stereotype like any other, about women, which needs to be broken. We now have enough opportunities to connect with our friends and must certainly go ahead and have those girls-day-outs. There is no reason to be ashamed of them saying that we are being selfish or frivolous. I think it nourishes our minds. But yes it is better to be weary of those friendships that can be emotionally draining. There would be cases where friends can become extremely dependent and clingy and we need to be able set the boundaries at the very beginning.
Men or women, we all have the need to connect with others. People in the earlier generations used to meet with each other more often either because they had a lot of time or because life moved at a much slower pace, with fewer distractions. Parks, public halls, temples or churches were places people frequented, to meet with others and just be with one another, without any specific agenda. These days things have changed a bit. Distances between people can be bridged with technology, but time is scarce and we lead hectic lives. That explains the popularity of the social networking sites.
Women are supposedly the most frequent users of social networking sites, these days. If used judiciously, we can enjoy our relationships with the help of technology. We just need to have the right attitude towards it. Hope this makes us realize that we can influence the lives of other women positively and together can bring about changes for the better in the society.
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Comments:
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nicely written article.
Nice article . The angle to the article is good. But you could use a different tone and style – the presentation seems too casual.