According to researchers at the University of Michigan, who were testing progesterone levels in women paired to work on tasks individually and together, feeling emotionally close to a friend increases levels of progesterone, leading to a general mood-upliftment and creating massive doses of feel-good.The research zeroed in on how women, when they spend quality time with female friends, feel a purely progesterone-driven surge of confidence and joy.

That’s the reason women giggling together in a powder room at a party exude an air of ebullience and invincibility, leaving men mystified. Female bonding is empowering, and most women would say they don’t need serious scientific research to tell them that. And it’s not just about gossip, shopping and discussing men either.

“My relationship with my girlfriends gives me the strength to cope with being a suddenly single mom. My girlfriends are my pillars, they are there for me whether I need to go to the salon or to take my daughter to the doctor,” says Priyadarshini Basu, a journalist whose 10-year-old marriage dissolved recently. “They taught me how to have fun again, but then, they also keep me grounded,” says Basu. “I enjoy my life far more with my girlfriends than I ever did with guys.”

Ethologists, those who study animal behaviour, say female bonding patterns can be found in most social animals and is different from male bonding. Friendships among women are typically based not only on shared activities, as with men’s friendship, but also on emotional sharing, says Kate Fox in Girl
Talk: The New Rules of Female Friendship and Communication.

Male bonding, according to Fox, tends to be “more formal and
organised — every known human society has some form of men-only clubs or associations.” It is as much because other women can be relied upon to really understand what they are going through because of shared experiences as their power to just listen.

Thanks to films such as The Devil Wears Prada, the image of the female boss and co-worker from hell is entrenched in popular memory, but women who work with female bosses or in all-women teams have a different story to relate.

Says Shubha Narayanan, who works for a not-for-profit organisation and is part of a team that comprises mostly of women, “It’s not just about women team-members understanding if you’re having a bad day. It’s also about avoiding competition with men.” Narayanan, who often works with women entrepreneurs and graduates from co-ed colleges, explains that women often take a back-seat when it comes to assuming leadership roles because of social conditioning, which unwittingly prompts them to take a back seat.

“Working in an all-women’s team means you assume those roles naturally and there is absolutely no gender-division of work,” she adds.

Yet, there are times when women start to take their relationships with their mothers, sisters, aunts, girlfriends or female co-workers for granted. Motivational speaker and corporate trainer Priya Kumar rues the fact that as women get on to the roller-coaster ride of man-woman relationships and move to occupy traditional family-oriented roles, they often forget to cherish their relationships with other women: their mothers, sisters, aunts and girlfriends.

There are other factors in play too that inhibit some women from getting emotionally close to others. “Vanity sometimes causes friction between women, especially in a culture where outward appearances are of greater importance than talent and intelligence. Also, being highly emotionally sensitive and perceptive, women tend to hold grudges easier and longer with other women than men,” says Kumar.

For Kumar, the most important aspect of women’s relationships with other women is sharing. “The greatest joy in female friendship comes from sharing, from accessories and vanity notes to secrets. Sharing brings comfort and builds trust. It’s not about borrowing the necklace, it’s about having someone who can lend you their intention to make you look beautiful,” says Kumar.

As Kate Fox puts it, “(What you get from your female friends) is the kind of unconditional acceptance, allegiance and support that is normally associated with family, but that we also expect from our ‘honorary’ sisters, our friends.”