With a little help from my friends : Gender and intimacy in two friendship research projects

• Friendship is an undertheorized but increasingly important relationship in late modernity. In this article, the authors present findings from two ongoing research projects about friendship, gender and age in contemporary Sweden. They argue that discourses about gender and friendship are very relevant for how friendship is conceptualized both among men and women, but that the well-known ideas about men’s inability and women’s capacity to be close friends ought to be problematized further, from feminist perspectives. Furthermore, they discuss friendships practices, problematizing the frequent equation of friendship and “deep”, intimate dialogues. Intimate dialogues are important but may overshadow other friendship practices, like various kinds of support, but the authors show that support is negotiated in relation to ideas of ideal friendship, permeated by reciprocity and equality. The authors call for further feminist research about friendship, arguing that a feminist perspective can destabilize gendered dichotomies and make it possible to problematize power relations, vulnerabilities and exclusions in friendships.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Friendship

intimacy

“disclosing intimacy”

gender

feminism

men’s friendships

older women’s friendship

dialogue

reciprocity

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)