Bro time matters
It's time to get over the suspicion of all-male gatherings
I just had a night out in London with some close male friends. These evenings have a different vibe now that we are all, at least, in our fifties, compared to those in years past. Once a year we try to fit in a week of walking and talking. As I’ve written before in “The fragile beauty of male friendship”, I treasure these men. And I treasure these times. That’s partly why I’ve also written before on “The case for male spaces”.
So I was fascinated to see some new Pew data on attitudes towards all-male and all-female social groups. These are in a report titled “Men, Women and Social Connections”, from Isabel Goddard and Kim Parker and packed with important insights on social connection, loneliness and much more. (AIBM was delighted to offer some advice on the survey).
The bottom line is that there’s a lot more support, especially among women, for a girls night out or girls trip than there is for the male equivalent. Goddard and Parker ask first whether such groups are good for the wellbeing of men and women, breaking the respondents by gender:
As you can see, men feel similarly about the positive impact of single-gender groups on the wellbeing of men (57%) and women (63%). But women are much more likely to see all-female groups as good for women (71%) than they are to see all-male groups as good for men (56%).
Then a question is asked about whether single-gender social groups are good for society overall. Again there’s more support for all-female gatherings than all-male ones, and again especially among women:
Among women, there’s a whopping 20-point gap in support for all-female social groups, with 59% approval compared to all-male ones, with just 39% approval.
I get it. Men in groups can egg each other on to bad behavior. We might get more tribal, more aggressive. The good news here is that rates of violence are way down, which means of course male violence. High school boys are much less likely to get into a fight.
The bad news is that many men are isolated. Connection to other men can be, literally, a lifesaver. I hear a lot of women saying that they wish their male partner had more male friends. I think we’re in a bit of a confused state about the whole idea of male solidarity right now.
It makes me sad to see that so many women are so opposed to men spending time with each other. I’d urge them to reconsider. But am I wrong about this? Should we be discouraging men from their trips or evenings out with the boys? I do hope not.
Thank you for this piece. My husband and I have just decided to sell our house to move closer to his friends. I didn’t really want to move because I felt it was a bit far away. But then it dawned on me that whenever I see my girlfriends we plan weeks in advance, and as such moving further away won’t impact my social life that much. My husband and his friends, on the other hand, are much more spontaneous in their planning. They will literally text each other asking if anyone is up for a beer or a run - usually meaning within the next hour. I hadn’t realized how much our different planning horizons impacted our social lives, and how lonely my husband was starting to feel. I’m not saying this applies to all relationships, but this insight made me appreciate that barriers to connecting can look different for men and women.
The Pew data confirms the view of male and female relationships well described in Joyce Benenson’s Warriors and Worriers: men are more inclusive and tolerant of difference; women like sameness and prefer the familiar.