I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but I could spend all day (and frequently do) searching for new TED Talks to inspire me in my everyday life. This past week, I was looking at TED Talks and found one that not only inspired me, but made me realize something incredibly important: how vital strong female friendships are.
In this TED Talk, hostess Pat Mitchell interviewed Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin about the importance of female friendships. The three of these women have been friends for a very long time, so it was encouraging to see how their friendships have grown over the years. The talk starts out as more playful and Jane and Lily poking fun at each other: Lily made a comment after needing a sip of water saying that “Just being with her sucks the life out of me.” Both women started laughing before Pat Mitchell began asking some more serious questions about friendship. The first question she asked was “What do you look for in a friend?” Both women had great answers, but Jane Fonda said something that I think sums up what friendship between women should be. She said:
“You know, they make me stronger, they make me smarter, they make me braver.”
Having deep, meaningful, supportive friendships is one reason why women are believed to live on average 5-10 years longer than men. Jane Fonda explained that the reason for this is the hormone, Oxytocin. Oxytocin is a feel-good, stress-relieving hormone that is released in situations where a woman may be over stimulated with certain emotions. High levels of Oxytocin are seen to be released when woman are surrounded by friends that allow themselves to think deeper and laugh harder. This shows how important it is to have strong female friends, not only for emotional reasons, but we as women need these friendships to be happy.
Too often, I think that women have toxic relationships with other women. Whether that is trying to compare how you look to another woman, judging their appearance, or gossiping about other women to each other. These are not relationships that build us up as women to make us stronger. Women need to be a support system for each other and one way to do that is forming these deep friendships. I believe that the love and kindness shown in these friendships will be infectious and spread to different types of relationships we see in our lives.
