Gender, Friendship and

Abstract

Gender interacts in noteworthy ways with the vital bond of friendship. Women tend to emphasize self‐disclosure in friendships more often than men, whereas men stress shared activities and instrumentality. Patterns emerge among the social norms or expectations that characterize friendships. Thus women react more negatively than men to violations of trust and intimacy and have higher expectations from their friends, especially regarding communion; men have higher expectations concerning friends' agency. Both sociocultural and contextual structural factors contribute to gender discrepancies. Differences can be exaggerated, however, and it remains important not to discount similarities between women and men. Friendship ties also tend to be segregated by gender – that is, to exhibit gender homophily (i.e., friendships with those of the same gender); and this type of homophily contributes to the development of societal gender inequality. Cross‐gender and cross‐sexual orientation friendships, however, challenge traditional gender assumptions. Finally, the Internet represents a novel frontier in research on the intersections between gender and the crucial ties of friendship.