Call Your Girlfriends

Or, what to do when it feels like the world is falling apart

Photo by Lorri Guccione on Unsplash

If you’ve woken up today and felt like the world looks a little more murky than you remember from yesterday, or that people seem a little less stable, then you’re not alone. I woke up to a long stream of, “oh my god, it’s happening again” messages from my friends. In the middle of them was one which said, “are you awake?”, the universal code for, “can I call you?”

If I had one all-purpose piece of advice for you, it would be this: call your girlfriends. When you’re tired or scared or joyful or worried or content or proud or tearful or laughing or resigned or furious, call your girlfriends. Culturally we are conditioned to see men as the people we go to in times of trouble, the warriors who will stride into battle on our behalf. But the fears of men are different from the fears of women, and just as we will never really understand theirs so they will never really know ours. Sometimes you just need to speak to someone who gets it. So call your girlfriends.

It is 8.20am as I write this and I have already had this moment of connection today. We spoke about the US election. She shared how it had hit her, how tiring and pointless all the work we do in this world feels when this is the result. How scary it is to bring up daughters in a world that seems to determined to crush them. What is the point of raising women up when the greatest power in the world would rather be lead by a criminal than a highly-qualified, highly-experienced woman (and definitely rather be led by a criminal than a highly-qualified, highly-experienced woman of colour)?

We talked for a bit about why this keeps happening and I remembered a moment that had happened earlier in the week. I’d been on another call, this one with a hundred-plus women all coming together to celebrate Samhain. As part of the call, one of the women had drawn a card from a deck depicting Celtic traditions. The card was drawn to set the tone for the coming year, a symbol of what was needed by the world. The card was “The Fosterer”.

Traditionally, Celtic families would send their children to be “fostered” by other tribes as a way of creating alliances and building kinship with people who might otherwise turn out to be their enemies. It was a form of child diplomacy. The children sent were young and so their first experience of this new tribe would be through the women. They women showed the children what it was to be a part of their culture, the rituals and behaviours that kept their tribe together and, more darkly, what it meant to be a warrior in that tribe. The women showed those children what it was to be part of that community but also how to fight for it.

As I spoke to my friend this morning, I saw how necessary that duality was again. That need to bring people into our community, to show them what it means to be supported by us but also what is required in return, what it means to go into battle for the people who look after you. It reminded me of all those cute videos I’ve been seeing on TikTok of men in their 60s, wearing a Stetson, stood on a ranch somewhere, talking about why they’d be voting for Harris because they didn’t want their daughter / grand-daughters to grow up without autonomy over their own bodies.

It was a beautiful sentiment but the problem was, it was too little too late. For too many years, those same men have rolled their eyes at their friends’ crass jokes or voted for a party which pretended to respect women, to respect anyone who wasn’t a white man, but didn’t. And perhaps those years of standing-by and not doing anything, of believing that progress was inevitable so they didn’t have to be warriors for it came about because we’ve forgotten the principles of fostering - it’s about creating strong communities with people different to you, and then fighting alongside them.

As I write this I think back to a question that has been nagging at me. How have I contributed to the patriarchal norms and expectations that are being honoured by the US election today? Where have I stopped fighting for the culture that fostered me? And there are so many ways. From the expectations that I put on myself and my body, to the issues I have decided are not mine to worry about, to the people I have failed to foster in return because it just seemed like too much effort and I was already so tired.

I’m not asking myself this question because I want to drown in a pool of self-blame but because when things feel overwhelming or downright horrible, the only person I know I have any ability to influence is myself. I might not be able to make the world better but I can make myself better. I might not be able to make the world kind but I can make myself kinder. I might not be able to make the world safe but I can make myself a safe haven for others. I might not be able to protect all the people around the world who need it right now but I can reach out, I can offer help, I can listen, I can foster. I can call my girlfriends.

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If you’re looking at bringing more joy, pleasure and excitement into your life (or just want to know who you are outside of the roles you’ve been playing for too long), then I’ll be running Sovereignty and Seduction with the amazing coach, Nikki Armytage-Foy, from the 8th - 10th November, in London. (As a subscriber you get a further discount, just DM me for the code). You can find all the details here or DM me if you’d like to discuss it.