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It never quite made sense to me because she had friends before she got married, in childhood and college, and in her early twenties she shared a two-bedroom apartment in West Covina, California, with three other women who were also teachers. They became a foursome; everyone at school knew their group. ÒI think they noticed us because we were young, attractive, and single,Ó my mom says.
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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This book was a 288 pages long version of a BuzzFeed article on friendship. Actually, BuzzFeed was often mentioned in the book itself. This book is just a buzzfeed article about 20 reasons Your Galentine's Day Gal is More than Your BFF She's Your LITERAL SOUL MATE . If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. At first, America knew the only child of Sonny and Cher as Chastity, the cherubic little girl who appeared on her parents' TV show. In later years, she became famous for coming out on a national stage, working with two major organizations toward LGBT rights and publishing two books.
Again, I love the girls who are close in my life and will always cherish their friendship. They're important but so are my other relationships. If you're looking for a lovely memoir outlining the joys of one woman's personal friendships and the connections she has made with friendship images in the media and if you enjoy contradictions, this is your book. She talks about mainly white women who have been portrayed as friends in media.
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I think the narrator suffers the most as she must read what is written and try to make it sound different from the masturbatory text of the author. Having listened to her other book "but you're still so young" I don't know why I expected anything different here. Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket.
“Our friendships – the ones we’re living every day – can stand on their own. They are supportive, enthralling, entirely wonderful, and, often, all we need.” Schaefer relates her personal history of female friendships and also discusses – using mostly pop culture examples – the history of friendships between women. FromBroad CitytoBig Little Liesto what women say about their own best friends, the stories we're telling about female friendship have changed. What used to be written off as infighting between mean girls or disposable relationships that would be tossed as soon as a guy came along are no longer described like that. Now, we're lifting up our female friendships to the same level as our other important relationships, saying they matter just as much as the bonds we have with our romantic partners, children, parents, or siblings.
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So, I gained some new insights and found her argument convincing. A personal and sociological examination—and ultimately a celebration—of the evolution of female friendship in pop culture and modern society. Where things got a little problematic for me was the author’s assumption that the pop culture portrayal of women as mean and competitive is true, as opposed to a construct created to sell TV shows and movies. “There’s a sense, among women at least, that achievement is a zero-sum game, and that we’re supposed to be cutthroat at all times.” If this is true, then it’s a world I don’t live in, fortunately. As a result, much of the book felt like a defense – rather than a celebration – of female friendships.
It is WILD to me that Schaefer did not realize this until she started to work. Granted, we all realize things at different paces but the book come off so condescending as if women haven't been relying on each other for emotional support for centuries. There are some interesting bits, like even the comparison between the post-war generation of stay at home moms and 2nd wave feminism, or what friendship might have meant in the Middle Ages. The conclusion hints at a more engaging read, since somehow between the Middle Ages and the Edwardian/Victorian period women were suddenly expected to have close, abiding friendships with other women. Or how 21st century women might be renegotiating things like domestic partnerships, child rearing, and retirement. But no, instead we get recaps of 90s tv shows, shallow personal anecdotes, and endless man on the street quotes that add up to essentially nothing.
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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.
The notion that your "best friend" should also be the person you marry is deconstructed, and that is to Schaefer's credit- I think that notion is unhealthy and it's wonderful to see it challenged here. In pop culture, the female friendship has evolved also. Schaefer discusses TV shows and movies as illustrations of how women connect. From Grey’s Anatomy and Legally Blonde, to Lena Dunham’s Girls, women are making sure friendship is rendered accurately in the media. Schaefer discusses the past predominance of “cat fights” in shows like Dynasty, and the efforts actresses and writers make today to offer a more positive portrayal. Schaefer talks about why female friendships are different now than they were fifty years ago.
For one, she seemingly implies that female friendships didn't exist before the 1980s, or maybe the 1950s? Or at least she starts the book talking about how women in her mother's generation didn't have female friends. She interviews two other people about this, Judy Blume, one other person, and reads the transatlantic letters Julia Child and one of her friends sent back and forth to each other? This is apparently enough for her to include that female friendship didn't exist during this time period, which seems like quite a claim. It is not actually a sociological perspective of modern female friendship but is definitely a personal celebration of one woman's understanding of female friendship, specifically through the lens of pop culture.
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.
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.
From Broad City to Big Little Lies to what women say about their own best friends, the stories we're telling about female friendship have changed. From Broad City to Big Little Lies to what women say about their own best friends, the stories we’re telling about female friendship have changed. Now, we’re lifting up our female friendships to the same level as our other important relationships, saying they matter just as much as the bonds we have with our romantic partners, children, parents, or siblings. I really liked that she did draw on her own experience, but the fact that she is a white woman universalizing her experience feels a bit...weird. This is but one moment when Schaefer's treatise on friendship becomes, in part, a story about marriage. Women are increasingly getting married years later than their mothers did, or perhaps not at all.
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"Men thought that was gross. That is the heart of this misogyny and the reason we were seen as so sexual and dangerous." At least in part because they couldn't afford not to, these women raised their friendships to the same level as other relationships in their lives. They took care of each other because it was necessary for survival.
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