Do women in your area support each other or is it isolating?

[Leteer]

I've lived abroad quite a bit and what I've noticed in some places a strong sisterhood where a woman bring eachother up and support them.

In the UK, What's the sisterhood like your area? Is it good? It is none existent?Are the women in your area more about control/ self serving/ individual interests or do they bring eachother up? Is there a known supportive community for women in your area or is it isolating?

Female neighbour on one side is lovely, female neighbour on the other side deliberately changes her facial expression to one of annoyance when laying eyes on us. No sisterhood, just basic human courtesy and decency, or stonewalling

I’m a member of largish gym and women there are very supportive of each other. It is a huge part of the attraction.

I don't want to be lumped together with other people just because we happen to have one thing in common. I've spent the last 15 years trying to avoid having to socialise with other mums just because we have kids of the same age and I'm finally getting towards the end of that era. I have female friends, am very supportive of work colleagues and I'll speak to anyone and help them out if they need it but I don't want to be dragged into some expectation that by virtue of my sex that I need to get involved in handholding strangers.

Not at all. In fact this kind of thing is what keeps culture alive in countries. Any country which has extremely strong traditions which have been kept alive I've found are the ones with women who have a strong sisterhood. This could mean dance, singing or a number of cultural things that is passed from one generation to the next.

Lots of people say that England is losing its cultural identity. Food for thought.

Perhaps you just had nosy neighbours? If I hadn't lived abroad I wouldn't have known what a sisterhood was to be honest. It has nothing to do with nosy neighbours but more about lifting eachother up.

It has nothing to do with nosy neighbours but more about lifting eachother up

Eh? My friends do this for me- why are you so insistent it has to be our neighbours that "lift us up". Why cant our friends whom we choose do this?

My previous neighbour who has thankfully gone now (yes, a woman) made racist comments about my husband- why on earth would I choose to hang out with such a horrible person?

I am connected to such a community as you describe.

Theoretically, the faith of that community states that men and women are equal. Women are able to hold positions of authority within the faith. In reality it is deeply misogynistic with higher than average rates of domestic abuse and places of worship are generally run by a cabal of old men who block women from taking on any formal roles, even though they are registered charities. But the women have great roles within the communal kitchen, providing three meals a day for men who can’t be bothered to cook at home…
Divorce is heavily frowned upon and young women who want to leave a marriage are often pressured to stay by male elders.
The women in the community are outwardly very warm and welcoming but the rivalries and feuds between the women are jaw-dropping. It is a very money and status-oriented environment. I think that women become far more ruthless in a patriarchal environment because it is about sheer survival.

I agree that what you describe can exist, but I think it often only exists for limited time periods and amongst women who are already fairly similar. NCT groups, when they are successful, can be an example of this phenomenon.

Yes I find lots of women feel they have to join a class to get this feeling with strangers - a pilates class, an art class, a craft class etc

I do wonder if it is possible for it to exist more widley. I watched a documentary the other day of places where people live the longest in the world and ALL of them were very high on connecting in the local community.

Fortunately, Ireland is no longer a de facto theocracy, everyone has access to contraception, the birth rate is way down, and women aren’t obliged to spend their lives banding together to look after children.

@Leteer if it's any consolation, I have known my neighbours in five different London boroughs and now I live in Essex and I know my neighbours. It's possibly different in blocks of flats because you're much more likely to bump into each other in situations where you might chat.

The last London place was definitely losing a sense of community - for me anyway.

I've never looked particularly for women's groups, but we have them in our local area for business networking and so on. Personal groups have formed out of that.

I do have people I can ask for help - not sure how much they would help as it's not been tested, but I could certainly ask my neighbours to pop out and fill a prescription for me if I wasn't well, for example.

Yes of course but cultural imprints from this era are still there.

That's nice. I just find it actually really really....interesting as at the moment I see lots of people want to champion behind the notion that we are a Christian country yet refuse to aknowledge Christian values such as "love thy neighbour"....

Are we really a Christian country, perhaps we are more pagan than we thought...

Anyway I digress! Thanks for replying and nice you knew your neighbours it's refreshing.

I live in a block of flats in a London suburb & chat to my neighbours when I see them, take in parcels etc. One neighbour & I look after each other’s cats when needed & get in shopping if the other is ill.

I looked after a neighbour’s son once in an emergency & I know who I could call on in my own emergency so as far as all that goes, yes.

I have found lovely supportive people, but not through the usual channels where I think women expect to find friendship and support. My closest friends have been with women I met through professional circles and through a support group for people with a health condition. I have cordial relationships with neighbours and other school mums, but I wouldn’t consider them close friends or sources of support.

I think too many women close down their lives when they have children and expect to get support from other mums and that hasn’t been my experience. The school mums I know are mostly gossipy and stabbing each other in the back and half drunk when I encounter them. It’s an interesting dynamic to observe, but I’d never share anything deep with any of them. 😂

@Leteer i'm not sure what Christian or pagan has to do with anything

In general, I think society and community have fallen apart. That's certainly been my experience post lockdown. I don't think it's irretrievable but I don't talk about it much on here because people seem to get very angry about it.

I realise that might not have come across from my cheerful post! But at some point I have to get on with the situation as it is, not how I would like it to be

So I was just giving you a factual account of how things are in my world - and people are still helpful in that way, although a lot of of the other community stuff has fallen apart.

What are you looking for exactly? There's probably a whole bunch of communities if you go to church.

Were you living in a country where women are openly oppressed by men? western society is more about the individual and has been for quite a while now.

But I didn't 'feel I had to' join a class for that purpose. I wasn't really seeking a community. I choose to do the activities I do because they are things I want to do.

Having said that, I was surprised to find that I do actually feel quite a strong sense of female community in the guild I belong to. There genuinely is something very pleasing and satisfying about being in a bunch of women, doing crafts that women have been doing together in one form or another for hundreds, maybe even a couple of thousand years.

What I am very wary of, though, is any suggestion that women should be a sisterhood. That we should unquestioningly support each other because we are women. Nobody expects men to do that.