Abstract
Sociologists argue that friendship is shaped by the social context. This means that aspects of a social structure, including gender inequality, will affect sociability patterns. In the late-twentieth century, the significance of women’s sociability was described and evaluated primarily in relation to their position within a private domestic sphere. Although this was seen to encourage the development of a distinctive pattern of intimate friendships, it also reflected gender inequalities. In this chapter, discussions of women’s workplace friendships are introduced to explore the significance of context, specifically public work settings, for women’s sociability. Examples of intimate work friendships are considered, raising questions about how women’s friendships are affected by the setting and modified by their increased participation in paid work.
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Notes
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‘Narratives of Collegiality: Friendships in Professional Settings’ (2010). Respondents in this study were academic staff, recruited between 2010 and 2011 from a single Australian university campus. Semi-structured interviews of 2–3 hours’ duration were conducted using an interview schedule which included topic headings such as ‘understandings of personal life’, ‘the university as a work setting’, ‘collegiality’, ‘identity’, ‘actual relationships with colleagues’, ‘academics’ personal friendships at work’, ‘community’ and ‘work satisfaction’. Participants were employed by the university under a variety of employment arrangements and came from the faculties of science, medicine, arts, humanities and business. Roughly a quarter were in senior positions with 30–40 years’ service at the same university, slightly fewer than a quarter were transient, while the lengths of employment of the remainder fell between these extremes. Respondents were from three age categories: early career (30–45 years of age); mid-career (45–60 years); and established (over 60 years). Comparison with the university’s own data showed that early career researchers were slightly under-represented. The research was supported by a small grant from The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney.
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Wilkinson, J. (2019). Beyond the Private Sphere—Focussing on Women’s Friendships. In: The Public Life of Friendship . Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03161-9_4
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