Pitzer in the News
2005-2006 Academic Year

Professor Peter Nardi Quoted in USA TODAY Article

The following article appeared in the Dec. 20, 2005 edition of USA TODAY.

SEXES TREAT FRIENDSHIPS DIFFERENTLY

The Mars/Venus differences between men and women couldn't be more apparent than in same-sex friendships.

Research shows men's friendships are based on doing things, such as playing a team sport. Women's are based on talking and sharing feelings.

In the past, men were more expressive, says Peter Nardi, a sociology professor at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., who edited the 1992 book Men's Friendships. But the appearance of Freud and discussion of homosexuality in the late 19th century caused men to distance themselves publicly from other men.

Then in the 1960s and 1970s, the women's movement and the gay rights movement started altering perceptions of gender roles.

"You have the emerging Alan Alda/Phil Donahue-type male," he says. "We start seeing an allowance for men to be a little more expressive and emotional, and talk more about issues and feelings."

Such examples include Bill Clinton hugging Al Gore in 1992 or George W. Bush, who Nardi says "allows himself to get involved emotionally."

Women's friendships are complex, says Ruthellen Josselson, co-author of Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendships.

"The nature of the friendship is pretty wired in the joys and difficulties involved," she says. "They have the positive, sustaining, meaningful, joyful aspects, and they also have their dissension, competitiveness and envy and hostility. Because friendships are so highly valued and important, and there is so much at stake, the pain that goes with it also is very great."

Nardi believes the continued evolution of men's and women's roles in society also will affect their friendships. "My hunch would be that men's and women's friendships will converge more," he says.

By Sharon Jayson

Copyright © 2005, USA TODAY