Comment by gastritisgerd on 14/02/2025 at 19:33 UTC

6 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)

View submission: Men, Women and Social Connections - Roughly equal shares of U.S. men and women say they’re often lonely; women are more likely to reach out to a wider network for emotional support

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I’ve always wondered this, and maybe you have the answer, but what’s the value of single gender friend spaces/groups? I hear this talked about fairly frequently, but I’ve never personally seen any value in it. (Sorry this is a bit off topic.)

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Comment by GraveRoller at 14/02/2025 at 22:04 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I think that’s a perfectly valid question. It’s only *sorta* about single gender spaces. What it’s also about is the fact that boys and girls tend to be socialized differently and having a group where everyone speaks a similar language is absolutely helpful for communication.

Let’s take something stereotypical for gendered communication: men search for solutions to problems while women want to discuss their feelings on the problem.

If a guy had a problem and wanted to solve it, he wouldn’t need to talk about how it makes him if it feels like an inefficient use of his time if he talked to primarily to men. If he was talking to a group of women he may have to first explain he’s looking for a solution-based discussion rather than caring about the emotional context. By talking to a same single-gender friend group he’s bypassed a whole conversation because there is a shared understanding on what his goal is. This can obviously be reversed for women.