Or rather, I should say – this what womanship means to me.
Baring in mind that as I write this I’m a grieving forty seven year old woman, with a daughter at University, and a small group of strong female friendships. Womanship is that combination of womanhood/female camaraderie and friendship. Put them together and you have womanship
I’ve looked up the term and there doesn’t seem to be a dictionary definition. Which is odd, I think, considering that I see womanship around me all the time.
We value time with our friends. That vital bit of space where we can not only off load about things in our lives but it’s that sharing; that ability to dip into another life and have a touchstone, a place, a moment where you can go ‘ok, so it’s not just me.’
It’s that feeling our way through our lives as we learn from talking and sharing our experiences, that reassures us that we’re not getting it wrong.
Stereotypically men would often see such a thing as either (old fashioned but as my father would say women ‘prattling on’) or maybe as a criticism of them. Sometimes it is, but more often than not it really isn’t. It’s having a baseline which we can compare ourselves to.
It could be that we need help; or that a friend steps in and speaks honestly. It’s that deep conversation as we share about friends, as we discuss women, our lives, how we live. You only have to sit in the local hairdressers, where the ladies have been coming for years and know the women around them…
Our conversation goes way beyond men or our partners. It could working out whether what’s happening at work is acceptable or not. Or it could be stressing about trying to find that non existing balance between being a good mother and not completely loosing yourself as you try to run the family home. Or that balance of trying to be a good daughter as we end up more than half running a second home as we care for an elderly parent as well… Or being a supportive partner – it took me a long time to learn that you give, you don’t expect. For me, that’s true love.
Just living day to day can be overwhelming and often exhausting.
How many of us have sat down and fallen asleep unexpectedly? I remember reading aloud to my daughter and all I did was read myself to sleep. She’d prod me awake wanting me to continue. This was something which happened frequently. I was working five and a half days a week: sound familiar?
I think it’s why the TV version of Sex and the City was so successful – finally there was a touchstone for women talking about men and relationships and all that entailed but at the core of the series there were the friendships. I find it’s those I think back to. Not whether Carrie ended up with Mr Big. There was an element of identifying – all commercialised and marketable for a series – but something which we could and wanted to relate to.
I think it’s why books are so appealing as we experience other women’s lives.
The Golden Notebook became a handbook (as it’s often referred to) for so many women of their generation. Yes, I suspect it’s because Lessing discusses sex frankly but again, there’s that element of talking to a friend, of knowing, of sharing. The same with Bridget Jones – one of the reasons I’m sure why Fielding’s books are so popular and frankly, why they’re such an enjoyable read, is the fact that we share Bridget’s life. Her imperfections are something we can all identify with and have dipped into more than once or twice. (With me it’s definitely the cooking. Blue string. Been there. Sadly, still am).
Which is why I’m interested in Womanship. Those times we spend with girlfriends, those conversations, that sharedness. It’s why I want to write about women and why I chose Stour as my setting. Women, together. Women not always getting on (we don’t!) but invariably there’s camaraderie.
Some of my books may have friendship as more of a theme than others, but I hope they all have that feel of dipping into someone else’s life. That openness. That sharedness. Those bonds of womanship.
