Sisterhood, misunderstood 👯♀️
For centuries, female friendship was labelled catty or competitive - but the bond between women can be unbreakable...
There has always been something magical about the energy shared between women. The support - plotting, laughing, debating, crying - is a powerful force that carries women through their lives. It’s the spirit of the coven, the whispered conversations, the quiet acts of rebellion.
We spend so much time talking about romantic relationships - how to find them, how to fix them, how to keep them - we sometimes forget the ones that will really anchor us are the female friendships we quietly build along the way in chaos and in calm.
Wicked: For Good’s release feels like the perfect moment to talk about that power. Because at its heart, Wicked isn’t really a film about tin men and magic wands. It’s a story about two women learning who they are - together, and apart.
👉 This week, we’re looking at why female friendships matter, how they’re portrayed, and what we can do to help the next generation see them for what they really are: one of life’s most transformative forces.
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🪄 The spell of female friendship
Good female friendships are a kind of alchemy. They shape who we become, while teaching us empathy, boundaries, and how to show up.
But they can be complicated! The narratives around women’s friendships are written with tension built in and films and TV shows lean into this narrative of female friends turned rivals (hello Cassie and Maddy in Euphoria), or groups defined by jealousy and betrayal (ahem, Gossip Girl).
It’s no coincidence that history treated women gathering together as dangerous. Because, when women get together, they create change. From the Greenham Common peace camp, to the lesbians who cared for gay men during the AIDS crisis, to writers’ collectives and protests, female solidarity has been a force that unsettles the status quo.
Even now, that unease lingers in culture. The ‘catfight’ headlines, the ‘mean girl’ trope, the competitive undertone that pits women against each other.
In reality, female friendship is one of the very few places women can actually drop the performance. Free from the male gaze, women can be ambitious, insecure, funny, furious - the full spectrum of human emotions. Where being ‘too much’ actually just feels like enough.
Resources
For teachers & educators
👉 Download our worksheet here:
For parents & guardians
👉 Conversation starters for long walks, dinner table chats and car journeys:
“Who’s your person at the moment, the one you can be yourself around?”
“What makes someone a good mate, do you reckon? What do you do to be a good friend?”
“Have you ever had a friendship that felt more like hard work than fun? What made it tricky? What did you do about it?”
“Do you ever see girls on telly or TikTok who are meant to be best friends but just end up arguing? Does that feel real or a bit fake?”
“If you and your mates were a little gang, what would your superpower be?”
“What’s something your friends do that always makes your day better?”
The aim isn’t to fix their friendships or moralise them - it’s to remind young people that good ones will lift them up, not make them feel small.
🪞 8 titles to add to you ‘to watch/read’ list
Our TV and film recommendations that get the magic of female friendships spot on:
📺 Derry Girls – friendship as survival, laughter as resistance.
📺 Sex Education – friendship through heartbreak, awkwardness, and evolution.
📺 Fleabag – a love story between two women who’ve known loss, regret, and the healing power of being seen.
📺 Girls – messy, flawed, and often uncomfortable, but an honest take on friendship in your twenties.
📚 Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney – friendship stretched by distance, adulthood, and the quiet fear of growing apart.
📚 Expectation by Anna Hope – friendship tested by time, ambition, and the lives we thought we’d have by now.
📚 Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo – friendship as community, solidarity, and the unseen threads that connect women across generations.
📚 Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton – friendship as home, heartbreak, and the truest love story of all.
Some of these are better suited to 16+ (Girls and Fleabag all explore themes around sex and identity), but they all have something to say about the complicated, beautiful business of female friendship.
Watch our exclusive interview with Cynthia Erivo here…
Hit subscribe and manage your subscription in Substack by ticking RISE to receive future issues of RISE by The Female Lead.
Such good questions to engage my almost ten year olds as their friendships evolve.