Were the object of her grief a spouse or sibling, her coworkers might have been more accepting. As time went on, most men still didn't accept the concept of female friendship. In the seventeenth century, Katherine Philips, a poet who was known by the pseudonym Orinda, formed what she called "the Society of Friendship" anyway. Historians debate whether the group ever had formal meetings, but they did share poems, and most of what Philips wrote about was friendship between women.
Kayleen Schaefer is a journalist and author of the bestselling Kindle Single memoir Fade Out. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Vogue, and many other publications. She currently lives in New York City, and Text Me When You Get Home is her first book. Text Me When You Get Home is a validation that has never existed before. A thoughtful, heart-soaring, deeply reported look at how women are taking a stand for their friendships and not letting go. Oh I'm sure all the women who lived together for years during the 1950s were JUST friends.
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I feel that the excessive references we're not necessary, and acted as a distraction rather than a relevant or necessary part. Feel-good read chock-full of positive affirmations about girlhood and femininity. No real plot in the sense of traditional storyline, but does have relatable anecdotes. Makes concerted effort to be inclusive of women with various identities but missed the mark a little on class. Still overall good read and provides reminder that being a good friend and having good friends is invaluable.
It made me want to text every one of my female friends to check in and tell them they are loved, or even to ask them if they wanted to spend time together sometime soon. It made me feel like there's a part of my life that could use some loving attention, and I'm excited to provide it. I really enjoyed most of this book and luckily she didn’t go off in a political direction until towards the end. It really helped me self reflect my relationships with women and it makes sense tying our current mentalities back to the social norms of the 70s and prior.
About Kayleen Schaefer
It's not that I know my mom as someone who surrounded herself with girlfriends. But I assumed that at this point in her life, in her mid-twenties, by herself, states away from her parents and siblings, she'd at least have looked to other women for companionship and commiseration. Weren't there other women on the base whose husbands were in Vietnam?
“Text me when you get home.” After joyful nights out together, female friends say this to one another as a way of cementing their love. This history helps explain how the idea that women can't trust each other, that we're better off forgoing friendship because eventually we're going to fail at it, became so intractable. Men told us not to rely on our own sex-and turn to them instead.
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"It just didn't turn out to be, and I can't tell you how lonely I was without my female friendships," Blume says. Schaefer makes the argument that women realize pretty late in the game how important other women are in each others lives. I personally have 3 close friends that I consider my people and lowkey wondering how I can tell one of them that we should buy houses within a few blocks of each other.
It is a very timely and important book, however, and one I'm so glad was published. It made me realize how lucky I am to have all the women in my life that I do, both past and present, and recognize that the "all-in-one" family idea is perhaps no longer relevant for our time. Instead, we all need a group of female friends who will text us when they get home. An examination of the importance of female friendship, Text Me When You Get Home is sure to inspire a reflection about the role of female friendship in your life.
Mostly anecdotes
What time they spent together was usually alongside a family member, if they joined a couplesÕ group or dragged a toddler to afternoon tea. If they had a hobby in common, they might get together for it. In the 1950s in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, when my grandmother, Christine (my momÕs mother) was in her forties, she played the card game canasta with three other women every month. Other than that my mom doesn't remember her having many friends. She had a husband and four children and was busy caring for them, cooking-every day, she made breakfast, lunch, and dinner-and doing laundry. On Mondays, she washed the clothes and then spent the rest of the week ironing them.
The users of #squadgoals in 2015 were starting an image shift. They were capturing and highlighting friendships they were proud of as they were going through life together. Anything on Instagram is a little bit perfected, but the emotion behind the photos didn't feel airbrushed. She goes on to say she quit the sorority after two years because she met a guy and didn't need to look for a boyfriend anymore (she wasn't in it to meet guys, though!) and he didn't like the Greek system anyway. I'm sure we did this to some degree, but I had friends who weren't in my sorority whom I thought were awesome and was conscious of not shutting them out.
It’s like paying to see an entertainer and then using their platform to promote their political agenda… It’s not what entertainment is about. The fact that she assumes that most women would identify with this part of the story is also a bit insulting. That chapter kind of deflated my enthusiasm for the book and I was hoping for more interesting ending as well. Sure, there were parts that did open my eyes to the importance of female friendships and the prevalence of internalized misogyny, especially among myself. But that could have been accomplished in about two pages.
For another, she basically strings random anecdotes from her life, coupled with a discussion of television shows that prove her point. These seem to exist to give her a reason to talk to television show creators and writers? She just doesn't seem interested in talking to people who aren't already famous, have already written on the topic , or she isn't close friends with or related to. I mean, that's fine, but then you need to call this a memoir with some interviews. In Text Me When You Get Home, journalist Kayleen Schaefer interviews more than one hundred women about their BFFs, soulmates, girl gangs, and queens while tracing this cultural shift through the lens of pop culture. Our love for each other is reflected in Abbi and Ilana, Issa and Molly, #squadgoals, the acclaim of Girls Trip and Big Little Lies, and Galentine’s Day.
In 1969, a year and a half after my parents married, my dad, who was a civil engineer in the Air Force, was sent to the war in Vietnam. My mom stayed by herself in an apartment near the military base in Omaha, Nebraska. She had a job teaching Spanish to high school students, so during the day she went to work and at night she came home and wrote my dad a letter. "I made a promise that I would write every night," she says. A couple she and my dad had been friendly with looked after her, taking her to the movies or out to dinner, but "not weekly," she is quick to add.
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