Letters to the Editor
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disliking women
This doesn't seem so fiercely pathological. I am female and have fewer close female friends than close male friends, but the female/female friendships I have are of very long duration and strong enough to stand up to difficulties. As a young woman, I was less comfortable with women my own age than with men because, it seemed, the women were far less trustworthy in situations with other women who were not close friends and, when motivated to lie, far better liars. (I have yet to meet a man who could successfully tell a lie and sustain the untruth the way a woman can when she wants to. Women are far better-schooled as illusionists.) In retrospect, I don't think that perception was all that far off the mark. The way women who are tightly bonded behave within the bond, that is, with their close friends to whom they're committed...and the way they behave with women outside that bond...the two can be VERY disparate.
I find I'm more aggrieved, when one of my female friends acts insensitively...which is pretty rare...than when a man does the same. The men I know well can do perfectly infuriating things without taking much note of their actions til the consequences come home, but most of the women I know well are attuned to what they're doing in an ultrafine way, so an I-know-not-what-I-do claim just doesn't work for them!